The Chance You Didn't Take
by Ronja-R
Summary: Cannon AU from the end of "Mockingjay". Peeta returns to District 12 and things progress much like in the book, except with one major difference: Peeta has not fallen back in love with Katniss. She, on the other hand, feels the same way about him as she does in the book...
1. Prologue

Something I've been working on for a while, parallell with "Labyrinth". Once I got the idea for this one in my head it felt too interesting to leave aside =) My plan is to keep both stories going, hopefully updating once or twice a month. First chapters for this story will be fairly brief but they'll get longer as the story progresses.

The title is temporary, so don't be shocked if it changes at some point.

* * *

To my own surprise, halfway through dinner, I suddenly realize that I'm feeling happy. The realization comes as such a shock to me that I pause with my fork halfway between the plate and my mouth and I have to take a second to put the cutlery down and take a few sips of the ice water in my glass to gather my wits. The faintest of smiles is suddenly on my lips and I set the glass back down and continue eating. A quick glance at the other two people at the table tells me that neither one of them noticed what just happened and for that I'm thankful. I don't want to make a big deal out of it.

It's been so many months of nothing but pain and grief and not really having the will to live anymore. It got better three weeks ago when Peeta came back to the district and I found him planting primrose bushes outside my house. On some level I think I was waiting for him and once he came back I could start moving forward with my life. I have to take everything in small steps but for the first time in forever it feels like I'm on the right path.

For the past week we've been having dinner together every night, the three of us. Haymitch, who spent so much time hiding out in his own house, seems to really long for company and he even lays off the bottle every day until he's had dinner with us. I'm starting to realize that Haymitch will never be fully healed. There have been too many years of pain and guilt and fear and the horrible memories from the Games, and he has been holding on to his bottles of white liquor for so long that he won't ever be able to let them go for good. They sobered him up in Thirteen and he stayed sober for some time but as soon as he had the option to drink again he did. That's just how he works. I understand that better than I ever did before and aside from the worry that he will drink himself to death I don't really mind it anymore.

The only one who's really changed for the better is Peeta. I was a bit wary when he returned, afraid of trusting the belief that he could get better. I never did make my peace with the idea of him being lost forever thanks to the hijacking and his gradual recovery left some spark of hope inside of me but too many bad things have happened for me to trust to hope. But he's doing better. He's moving closer and closer to becoming his old self, his true self. The kindness and understanding is back, the gentle spirit too. I don't know to what extent he's recovered since he hasn't talked to me about it yet but in my heart I'm beginning to think that he can be the same way he once was.

Sitting here tonight with two of the people I care the most about in the whole world being here with me makes me feel happy. It's not a feeling I ever thought I would have again but it's there and it's a little overwhelming to realize. I thought it would take something monumental to feel like this again but maybe the everyday things could have that effect also.

I look at Peeta, blowing a curl of ashen hair away from his face before putting a forkful of food in his mouth, and I wonder how much of this feeling is because of him. It's so good to have him back. Gale went off to District Two, my mother to District Four and the friends I made in Thirteen and during the Quell went their separate ways also. Only Haymitch came back home with me. Having Peeta here too makes me feel relieved. At least I didn't lose them all.

I have to admit to myself that I like looking at him. I like quietly studying his blue eyes, the curve of his upper lip, the way his body moves. I like looking at him and seeing the Peeta I knew before the hijacking. It wasn't so much the things he's said since coming back that made me know that he was beginning to recover for real. It was his body language. I recognized _him_ in how he moved and in his face and that matters more than hearing him say the right things.

Once dinner is over we relocate to the sitting room. Haymitch throws his legs up on the coffee table and leans back on the couch, burping loudly. Peeta goes over to the fireplace and starts to work on getting a fire going. I curl up on an armchair, my feet folded underneath me, and allow myself to relax and enjoy the moment. It's quiet and we only talk a little bit but it still feels good. It feels like home.

After about an hour Haymitch begins to miss his bottle and he gets up and bids us a good night. Peeta rises from his spot on the couch and offers to help me clean up after dinner. I feel myself smiling slightly again. We haven't been alone together since he came back. Not unless you count that brief meeting when he was planting the primrose bushes.

We walk into the kitchen and Peeta begins to fill the sink up with hot water. I gather the dishes and open a cabinet to find a towel to dry everything off with while Peeta begins to wash the forks.

"Dinner was good" he offers, though he already said so while we were eating.

"Thanks" I say anyway, taking the forks he hands to me.

"It's been nice having dinner with you and Haymitch every day this week."

"It has been" I agree.

He doesn't say much else until he's finishing up washing the last item, a large pot. He glances at me as he scrubs it with a brush and gives me half a smile.

"I think it can be better now" he says. "_I_'_m_ better."

"You are" I acknowledge.

"Obviously I don't hate you anymore, like I did when…" He trails off and hands me the pot, reaching into the sink to pull out the plug and let the dishwater out. "I don't hate you. And I think we have a shot at being real friends now. And I mean, like, real friendship. Not like what we were trying to force between the Games."

"We weren't trying to force anything" I object softly, though that is of course a lie. Then again it's not, because what we tried to force was a grand romance, not friendship. We were quite good at being friends, as I recall.

"I know it was awkward back then" says Peeta, drying his hands on the fabric of his jeans. "There's a lot of stuff I don't remember, and stuff that I'm not sure if what I remember is real. I try to think positive though, and as awful as the hijacking was, at least it brought something good."

"What good could that possibly be?" I snort.

"I'm not in love with you anymore." He smiles a little. "Before there was always my unrequited love making things awkward and preventing us from truly being friends. Now we're on equal footing. Nothing to disrupt the balance."

"Great" I say, but I can hear how hollow my voice sounds.

"Anyway, thanks for dinner." His smile widens a bit. "I should get going. Bakers get up early in the morning."

"Safe a loaf for me tomorrow morning" I reply, following him with my eyes as he walks towards the kitchen door.

"I'll do that." The door opens and he steps out into the night. "Have a good night, Katniss. See you tomorrow."

"You too."

The door closes and I find myself staring at it for a good five minutes. I'm well aware that when it comes to identifying a feeling I'm not one who excels. Right now that is pretty damn inconvenient because I can't figure out what that hollow feeling inside me is about and how it could come on the same night that I began to feel happiness again.

The closes thing I can liken it to is… loss.


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm not in love with you anymore".

Seven simple words. Ones I should have been relieved to hear, at that. It used to make me feel awkward and uncomfortable whenever Peeta reminded me of his – at the time thought to be – undying love for me. If he doesn't harbour such feelings for me anymore then everything should be okay, right?

For some reason the words keep echoing in my mind in the months that follow, never making me feel _relieved_. Spring turns to summer, summer turns to autumn and we begin to rebuild our lives and it should be so much easier now that we're on equal footing. But those words just won't leave my mind.

I try to tell myself that it's just difficult seeing Peeta lacking of any of the attributes he had before I destroyed the second arena and he was taken prisoner. His love for me was such a big part of him and such a driving force for him. Now that it's not there anymore it feels a little bit like part of the old Peeta is lost.

Deep inside I think there might be another meaning to it. I've lost so much love in the past year. I lost my sister, the one person I was sure that I loved. My mother moved away and that means I'm living alone, for the first time ever not sharing a roof with somebody who loves me. Gale's and my friendship came to a tragic end, that much is for sure, and while I do not mourn his romantic love I do miss the days when he was like a brother to me. And Cinna, he loved me too in a way. So did Finnick, in a completely platonic way, the way Gale and I should have stayed. All of that is gone now so perhaps that is why it hurts to know that Peeta doesn't love me anymore either. I have always been aware of the less pleasant sides of my personality but so long as there were people who loved me I assumed that I couldn't be that horrible and that there must be something redeemable about me. Now it's like I have no such people left and I don't know how to feel about that.

Then again, I know I'm not alone. I have Haymitch and I have Peeta, even if things with the latter aren't what they used to be. The three of us slowly evolve back into the family we once were, only now instead of having Peeta's unrequited love hanging over our heads we can be more like siblings him and I. We can be a real family to each other with no silly romantic feelings threatening the balance or making things awkward.

At least that's what I try telling myself. The truth is I feel something lacking when I'm around Peeta and it's difficult for me to come to terms with. He still smiles, he still laughs, he's still compassionate and caring and so many of the things that were once essentially Peeta. There's just no deeper meaning or feeling behind it and it makes me feel threatened. I used to think his behaviour around me was rooted in love but if this is just how he acts around the people he is close to, whether romantic or platonic, then what does that leave of what used to be? I always thought he treated me in a special way because of his feelings for me and selfishly I want to hold on to that thought.

There's also no denying that no matter how well I get along with Peeta and Haymitch I am not quite an equal in this arrangement. Haymitch and Peeta have a way of understanding one another that I've never noticed before. They seem to seek each other out more than they seek me out and that makes me feel left out. They never directly exclude me but it's all in the little things. How Peeta brings Haymitch breakfast in the mornings but never brings me anything unless I've specifically asked. How I see Haymitch wobble over towards Peeta's house when he needs company, instead of ringing my doorbell. How, when we gather at my house for dinner, they always leave at the same time.

I try not to let those things bother me too much. I know I should be focusing on the positive. That the district is being rebuilt and people are free now and there aren't, to my knowledge, any important politicians who want me dead at present.

And I do enjoy those rare alone moments with Peeta more than I ever think I did before, bittersweet though they may be.

It doesn't happen often. We get maybe an hour here, a fleeting moment there. I like being around him. I like the way his presence makes me feel. Though it always stings to think about him saying that he no longer loves me I do enjoy the new friendship that I can feel growing between us. It's something different than what we've had in the past. Maybe it's for the reason he said – that there's no more unrequited feelings hanging between us. Yet at the same time that doesn't seem to be the full answer.

He's different than he used to be. Not necessarily because of the hijacking but because his experiences have caused him to mature in a way he might not have otherwise. He's more introverted now; it takes more coaxing for me or Haymitch to get any close information out of him. He doesn't say anything about his dead family or the friends he's lost. He doesn't like to talk about his experiences in the Capitol, whether it's his time as prisoner or his time with me in the Star Squad. We can barely get him to tell us what his plans are now. Haymitch and I both assumed he would rebuild his parents' bakery but he doesn't seem to be in a hurry to do so. He still bakes almost every day but it seems more like a routine than a choice.

Sometimes when we have those rare alone moments I watch him from the corner of my eye, hoping he can't tell that I'm studying him. I watch the lines on his face, admire the look of concentration when he's working on something, observe the way his expressions change and try to read as much as I can from his body language since he volunteers so little verbal information. I've asked him to help me re-create some pages for my herbal book because some of them have been damaged and usually our moments alone are when he's drawing for me. It brings back memories of when he first started helping me with this book and how comfortable I felt in his presence at that time. I still feel comfortable in his presence but it's different now somehow.

The one thing I would really like for him to draw, but can't seem to bring myself to ask, is a primrose. I have the real thing growing outside my house but there's a part of me that would like to have a picture drawn to put up on my wall. I long to get to see it whenever I walk into the room but I also fear it. Prim's death is still too near. I can't' quite handle it yet. When I do feel ready I hope Peeta will help me out.

* * *

It's the first really cold day of the year, the day I finally feel ready to ask him.

I've been out in the woods and the ground was covered in frost. I found a flock of birds at the lake, stopping their on their way south for the winter. I killed two, and one is currently roasting in the oven along with Haymitch's trademark dish, potato wedges drenched in oil and seasoned with rosemary. Exhausted from his contribution to the meal Haymitch has fallen asleep on the couch, snoring with a newspaper over his face. I'm sitting by the fireplace trying to warm up, even though it's been hours since I got home from the woods, and Peeta is kneeling by the coffee table, working on a sketch for the book.

"Do you still do paintings?" I ask, my voice a touch low so Haymitch won't wake up.

Peeta looks up.

"Haven't thought about it. I suppose I can't say I _don't_, only I _haven't_ since the… since the war. Paint hasn't been the easiest commodity to get your hands on and I've sort of been saving my tubes of paint for when I get a real inspiration to paint something."

He goes back to working on the sketch, as if the question was merely me making conversation. I falter for a moment but then gather my courage.

"Would you paint something for me…? If I asked you?"

He looks up again and our eyes meet. It's strange how his eyes can be so piercingly blue in daylight but look so dark in other forms of lighting.

"Are you asking?"

I avert my eyes, feeling strangely bashful.

"I would like… I would like a painting of a primrose. To hang on the wall in Prim's old bedroom."

He's silent for almost a full minute, his brow furrowed as he thinks it over. Immediately I feel like an idiot for asking. He just told me that he's saving his paint for when he's truly inspired to paint something and here I am asking him to paint something for me, whether he feels inspired to or not.

"I can pay for the paint" I blurt out.

He doesn't answer. His eyes move a bit as he thinks, a trait I've noticed in him before. I imagine his mind to be full of images while mine is a lot less colourful and lively. While I think of things in terms of words I like to believe that Peeta thinks of things in terms of images, and that his eyes moving about is because in his mind he goes from one image to the next. I don't know why these thoughts are in my head right now, nor do I realize I'm actually staring at his eyes until they finally move in my direction.

"Which colour primrose?"

"What?" I ask, brought out of my own thoughts and surprised by the question.

"Primroses come in different colours. Yellow, blue, orange, white…"

"Yellow" I answer. "The yellow primrose is Prim's flower."

He nods slowly. The ones he planted outside my house are yellow but perhaps he's low on that particular colour of paint and that's why he's asking.

"Sure" he then says. "Sure, I can paint that. Only…" He gives half a sheepish grin that makes me smile and sends some strange sensation through me. "To be perfectly honest with you I don't quite remember what they look like. I didn't spend much time looking at those bushes I planted, once they had begun to bloom. Do you want me to try and paint it now off of memory, or can it wait until spring?"

"Oh." I try to think of what to answer. On the one hand I of course want him to paint it as accurately as possibly. On the other I want that painting soon, now that I've mustered up the courage to ask for it. "Well… I suppose there's no harm in waiting."

"Prim deserves having it done right, right?" he offers.

"Yeah" I nod.

He gives me a smile and then returns to the drawing he's currently working on. I find myself still smiling for several minutes, though I'm not really sure why.

* * *

I'm definitely no botanist and when I looked into primrose flowers it seemed like "primrose" is more a flower family name than one specific blossom. I chose to go with the specific flower the Swedish translation of the books names as the ones Peeta plants in Katniss' garden (_nattljus_ in Swedish, or Oenothera biennis) as the one Katniss thinks of when she hears the name.

Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

The snow comes early this year. It's been chilly for a few weeks, with frost on the ground each morning, but during daytime the sun has warmed everything up and it's been around ten degrees centigrade. When I wake up from a nightmare in the dead of night and go to the window I first think that I'm still dreaming when I see the white flakes falling. Going to the window is my standard move after a nightmare, feeling at least a little bit comforted by the sight of Haymitch's and Peeta's houses, reminding me that I'm not as alone as I sometimes feel. But when I see the snow falling down hard I feel isolated, almost trapped. It takes me hours to fall back asleep that night, which in turn means that I don't wake up until it's past ten o'clock, which hasn't happened in months.

Once I'm up I look out the window again and find that the whole world seems covered in snow. It seems to be at least a decimetre or two deep, obscuring the grass, the road and the pebbled paths that lead up to each house. The houses seem almost like islands in the middle of all this white. Neither Haymitch nor Peeta appears to have set foot outside judging by how the snow looks untouched around their houses.

I head downstairs after putting on clothes warm enough for winter. I don't need to go hunting but I long to be out in the woods to enjoy the beauty of the glistening snow and the tranquillity I hope I will find there. I shove my feet into my old boots and put on a scarf, coat and gloves made by Cinna. I can't seem to find a hat that belongs to me but in a drawer I find one that belongs to my mother. It's dove blue and warm and when I put it on I'm able to pull it down over my ears with no problem. I cast only a brief glance at myself in the mirror and then I head out the door.

I trudge through the snow to get out on the road, not bothering to shovel a path. For all I know there will be more snow anyway and besides, I've never been bothered by walking in deep snow. Few people even had snow shovels in the Seam so I've never seen much use for them since moving to the Victors' Village. Before the war all such things were taken care of Capitol people anyway.

I haven't taken many steps in the direction of the woods when I catch a noise. I turn to see Peeta wearing a rather thin coat considering the weather, standing right below his front porch with a shovel in his hand. Apparently he has other ideas than me when it comes to the necessity of shovelling snow.

Feeling uncharacteristically light-hearted I forget about my intentions to go to the woods and begin to walk in his direction. It feels good to see another living soul that isn't Buttercup and being reminded that it's just a bit of snow and it won't isolate me from the only people I have left in my life.

"Watch your step!"

Peeta's voice surprises me. He hasn't looked up to see me coming and I didn't think he would hear my soft steps over the sound of the shovelling. I stop when I hear his warning and look down at the ground, trying to locate the cause of his cautioning.

"It rained last night, before it began to snow" says Peeta, glancing up at me. "The rain froze to ice underneath the snow."

What he's saying makes sense, though not entirely. It's true that ice underneath a layer of snow makes for really slippery footing. Most people who fell and broke bones and sought my mother's help back before the war had slipped on ice underneath snow. But if there really is ice underneath here I ought to have felt it.

"Are you sure?" I say. "Didn't seem slippery when I left my house."

He takes a pause from his shovelling and looks over at my house.

"Judging by your tracks it seems you walked across the grass, not the path. The grass won't be half as slippery."

"You have good eyesight" I remark.

He shrugs and sends another shovel full of snow flying out on his lawn.

"I wouldn't be much of a painter if I didn't."

"I guess" I say with a hint of a smile.

"You off to the woods?" he asks.

"Yes. I thought I'd go enjoy the first real day of winter out there."

He gives me a look.

"You'll be sick to death of winter long before it ends."

"Probably" I admit, taking a few careful steps in his direction. "But now that winter doesn't mean being freezing cold and starving I can enjoy its beauty."

He smiles.

"I've always wished I could capture snow in a painting. It's so beautiful how it glistens and sparkles on the ground. And while I don't care much for frost in and of itself I love the way it looks on the branch of a tree. Being able to capture a forest on a clear winter's day would really be an achievement."

"You'll manage it, some day" I offer, fully confident that he will.

"In my eighties, perhaps" he mutters. By now he's made it about two yards and is just two feet away from where I'm standing. "Aren't you going to clear the path to your door?"

I look over at my house and shrug.

"I don't mind walking through a foot or two of snow."

"A foot or _two_?" he questions.

"I think you'll find you're the only one out here who bothers shovelling snow" I say teasingly. "I doubt Haymitch will bother with it."

"No, knowing Haymitch he will wait until I get fed up sinking down to my knees in snow just to give him his breakfast bread every morning. I can hear him already, throwing me some comment on how if it bothers _me_ so much then _I_ can deal with it. Even though I know he hates wading through snow himself."

"You're probably right" I chuckle.

"Yeah, well joke's on him" says Peeta, stopping to brush a strand of hair from his face. "He needs to get out of the house more. Get some actual fresh air for a change. If he wants bread this winter he'll have to come to me."

"Listen to you, sounding all strict" I say with another small chuckle.

"Like I said, he needs to get out more."

"What about me?" I ask. "Will I have to come to your door to get breakfast, too? Or can I have mine delivered?" In my mind I start picturing the three of us having breakfast together every morning, like old times, and a warm feeling runs through me.

"Shame on you for expecting the guy with the prosthetic leg to wade through the snow to bring breakfast to you" he says in a jestingly chastising tone.

"Well what do you say both Haymitch and I show up at your door to get our bread and to cook whatever I've killed for dinner?" I suggest, my tone light but the question quite sincere. I like the idea of spending long winter days cooped up with Haymitch and Peeta in a house that smells of freshly baked bread and, let's face it, is much more like a real home than mine or Haymitch's houses.

"Do the dishes afterward and you might just have yourself a deal" he answers with a raised eyebrow.

"Haymitch can do the dishes."

By now we're standing right in front of one another. It's good to see him like this, looking healthy and recovered from his traumas. His cheeks are rosy from the cold, fresh air, his eyes seem an almost unnatural shade of blue and he's got snow here and there in his hair, glistening as much there as down on the ground. I don't think I would mind standing here for a minute or two and watch the boy they broke so badly looking so alive and youthful and innocent.

"You realize you're in my way, right?" he teases.

"Or you can put the shovel down and just walk in my footsteps the last bit" I reply.

"You'd still need to move for that to happen, though" he smirks.

"Eager to get rid of me?" I tease.

"Not necessarily. Though if you want to hang around I'd rather you moved to stand beside the mailbox, like a good lawn ornament."

"Hey!" I yelp, giving him a playful smack on the shoulder, enjoying the sound of his carefree laughter. "Okay, okay, I'll move."

I turn around a little too fast and lose my footing. Instinctively I reach out and grab his arm to steady myself.

"Whoa!" he says. "Careful now!"

But it's too late. We both begin to slip on the ice underneath the thin layer of snow left from Peeta's shovelling. I hear the shovel drop to the ground and I grab on to Peeta with both hands out of pure reflex and for a brief second it seems like we might be able to stay on our feet. Then we've fallen over in the snow, me landing on top of him, both of us laughing like carefree children.

"Did you hurt yourself?" I ask through my laughter.

"Only my pride" he laughs back. "Ow, and my tailbone I think. A little."

The closeness of his body, even through the layers of my winter clothing, brings a warmness to me. I'm reminded of another time we slipped and fell like this in the snow, in what seems like a whole lifetime ago. That time there were cameras, there was the threat of Snow hanging over our heads and there was the uncertainty of my feelings. I don't feel that uncertainty anymore as I look at him, his face so close to mine. My laughter subsides and I can think of nothing but how it ended the last time we were in this predicament. It feels like an odd chance of a do-over, a chance to get to re-live that kiss for nobody else but for us. And I wonder what it would be like to kiss him now. Would it be like those kisses on the beach? I don't let myself think about those kisses often but in this moment it seems like it's the only thing on my mind.

"Are you okay?" asks Peeta, brow furrowed with concern.

"Yeah" I exhale.

"You're not getting up."

The moment is gone as quickly as it came. He doesn't feel the way I do. He doesn't want to kiss. I'm not even sure I want to anymore either, equally frightened of what it would mean if a kiss now would feel like the ones on the beach and of what it would mean if it didn't. All the same I can't seem to get off him just yet.

"Do you remember…?" I ask him. "When we were in the snow like this? When we were leaving for the Victory Tour?"

"Vaguely" he says. Then he makes a displeased face. "It's one of those memories I can't really reach. They twisted it in my mind and I don't know what is real and what is their spin on it. It's not a good memory in any case."

Reluctantly I lift my body off of his, defeated by his reply. It takes me by surprise to learn that he doesn't consider that a good memory and it makes me feel a lot sadder than it probably should. I focus on looking down on my outfit as I brush the snow off of it. I take a step to the side so that I'm standing on the lawn and I am no longer in the way. Peeta rises beside me and grabs the shovel.

"I try not to think back" he says, sounding a bit closed off now. "I want to make new memories instead. Ones I know are real and mine."

"Still" I say, brushing myself as if there's more snow there. "We had some good memories, too."

He takes a short pause from his shovelling.

"They're not so good in my head." He continues what he was doing, sending a heap of snow flying onto the pile beside the path on the opposite side of where I'm standing. "I don't like thinking about it."

I feel completely deflated. All the warm, happy feelings inside of me when I headed out to enjoy the beauty of the first snow in the woods, and the strange excitement I felt when Peeta and I were on the ground mere seconds ago, have gone away.

"Peeta…" I hear myself saying. "There _were_ good moments. I don't want you to forget or ignore them."

He shrugs.

"Like I said, I would rather make new memories." Yet another shovel-full of snow goes flying out over his lawn. "Sometimes that's what keeps me going, you know? The thought that the best memories I will have in my life have not yet happened."

"You'll get good and happy memories" I say. "Just… Don't let them take away the good ones from the past. I'd be more than happy to help you reclaim them."

"Thanks, but…" A cringe flashes over his face for a brief second. "I think they'll come back to me easier without your help. At least until I've recovered more. As much as I despise it I haven't fully learned yet to ignore that voice in my head that tells me to be wary of the things you say about the past."

His revelation feels like a punch in the stomach. I wrap my arms around myself, feeling a growing sadness aching inside. I had no idea that he still had that much wariness regarding me. I know he desperately wants to overcome it and I know he doesn't hate me anymore but it feels like such a big hurdle. I want him to come back to me, the way he was before, trusting me like he used to. Whatever the nature of our relationship will be I want it to be genuine and complete and not tainted by the past.

"You should get going if you want a chance to see all your favourite spots in the woods before darkness falls" says Peeta. Nothing in his voice hints to what we were just talking about and the change makes me falter for a moment.

"Oh… Actually I'm not so sure I want to go out there anymore. One tumble in the snow was enough for me today, I think." I look at him as he wipes his brow with the back of his mitten-clad hand. "What about you? What are you up to for the rest of the day?"

"Heading into town" he says. "I noticed a few weeks ago that my winter coat is looking rather… worse for wear, to put it mildly. I've been meaning to get another one but I thought I had more time before the snow would fall." He pauses and sticks the shovel in the ground, resting his forearms on the handle. "To be fully honest with you… I've been avoiding getting a new one because I wanted to hold on to the one Portia made. I know how much love and concern she put into everything she made for me."

I don't know how to respond. Funny, I never thought about Peeta feeling close to Portia the way I felt to Cinna. In the end we both got our designers killed, and we both had to watch their demise from just a few feet away, powerless to save them. I look down at my own clothes and know I want them to last for as long as possible, as if Cinna still lingers on as long as I wear his clothes.

"I can understand that…" I tell Peeta. "I'm sorry it got ruined."

"It's not Portia's fault" he says, though I didn't think it was. "The morning I left for the Quell reaping I must have left a window open. Looks like a rat chewed on it."

"You have other clothes that she made, right?" I say, not knowing what else to say.

The hint of a smile appears on his face.

"Mostly suits and dress shirts… But there are a few other items that I'm being very careful with nowadays. And three very comfortable sets of pyjamas."

It never occurred to me that Portia would make Peeta _pyjamas_. Cinna didn't make anything like that for me, though Octavia mentioned that he had been tasked to make me something to wear for my wedding night. Thinking about it makes me blush.

"I should get going" I say, feeling suddenly awkward being near Peeta.

"If you're not going to the woods maybe you can go wake Haymitch?"

"Gee, doesn't that sound like fun?"

"Just be careful that you don't slip and fall again" says Peeta, offering me a friendly smile. "Don't think you can get me to come to your door with bread every day this winter just because you fell and broke your hip."

"My hip?" I echo. "What am I, eighty?"

He chuckles and shrugs. I give a small wave and then I walk off in the direction of my own house. On my way there I do as Peeta asked and stop by Haymitch's house to wake him up, naturally getting no thanks at all from our old mentor for providing this service. I let him grumble and growl and gripe while I put a kettle on the stove to make him some tea, giving him almost none of my attention. I usually don't when he's in this kind of mood but today it's more than just drowning out his discontent. My mind keeps going back to that moment when Peeta and I were lying on the ground together, just like when the Victory Tour began.

I wonder again what it would have felt like to kiss him today.

* * *

I feel a bit strange when I go over to Peeta's to have dinner that evening. I wonder if he's going to say anything about what happened earlier in the day or if things will be weird between us. Imagine my surprise when I walk through the door and am immediately greeted by the sound of Peeta and Haymitch laughing. I quickly hang up my coat and kick off my shoes and walk to the kitchen where I find the two of them already working on dinner. Peeta is stirring something in a big pot and Haymitch is chopping bell peppers.

"Sweetheart, you're late" says Haymitch in a fairly cheerful tone. "Thanks to your tardiness Peeta forced me to help out with dinner."

"God help us all" smirks Peeta. He lifts the large wooden spoon full of red sauce from the pot, grabs a teaspoon and scrapes some of the sauce off. He puts the teaspoon in his mouth and a look of concentration passes over his face when he tastes it. "More pepper. It needs more pepper."

"Alright already, I'm working on it" says Haymitch in a playfully nagging tone, chopping a yellow bell pepper with gusto.

"Pepper as in spice, not vegetable" chuckles Peeta. "Katniss grab the pepper from the kitchen island, would you?"

Still confused by the merry mood I grab the jar and hand it to him. He adds what seems like an awful lot of pepper and then puts it back on the spice rack where it belongs. Haymitch grabs a handful of chopped up bell peppers and tosses them in the pot while Peeta eyes through the other spices on the rack trying to decide what else to add to the mix.

"What are you boys making?" I ask, not entirely able to hide my surprise.

"I have no idea" says Peeta. "Haymitch is _improvising_. I hope you're not hungry."

"Careful" says Haymitch. "I've got a knife in my hand."

"You often do but I'm faster than you."

"Did you both nab from the extra stash of morphling?" I ask while I take a seat by the kitchen island. Both Peeta and I were given a few doses of the drug to use in emergencies, since our wounds haven't fully healed yet.

"What, we can't be in a good mood?" asks Haymitch. He grabs the wooden spoon from Peeta, scoops up some sauce and shoves it in his mouth, ignoring Peeta's protests. "Ugh! Too much pepper."

"You can't eat straight off this spoon!" Peeta objects. "No, don't put it back in the pot now!" He takes it from Haymitch at the last second. "That's it, you're on a cooking time out. Go set the table instead."

"Who made you boss of the kitchen?" snorts Haymitch.

"It's _my_ kitchen."

The good-natured bickering continues, though Haymitch is not allowed near the food again until it's ready to be served. After dinner Haymitch challenges Peeta to a game of chess and I volunteer to do the dishes while they take out the chess board and duke it out at the kitchen table. Haymitch has tried to get me to play him a few times but I always say no. I was taught how to play when I was younger but I never had the patience for it. The concept of forming a strategy of attack did draw my interest but it just takes too long to play. I get bored just watching Haymitch and Peeta.

When I'm finished with the dishes I pull out a chair at the end of the table and take a seat anyway, entertaining myself by pointing out various strategic moves, or at least moves I perceive to be strategic, which seems to annoy both Haymitch and Peeta. I pretend not to notice, finding more amusement in messing with them than I do in watching the game itself unfold at a snail's pace. After about an hour they decide to put the game on hold for now, neither one of them seeming to be anywhere near victory. Haymitch carefully lifts the board and carries it over to a side table, putting eliminated pieces in a wooden box.

"Time to head on home" he says.

"Katniss, would you mind sticking around for a minute?" asks Peeta as we both rise from our seats. "There's something I want to show you."

"Sure" I say, my curiosity woken.

We follow Haymitch to the front hall and bid our goodnights as he heads out into the darkness. There's a strangely pleasant feeling in the pit of my stomach at staying behind and watching Haymitch leave – not because I mind his company but because something about it reminds me of the togetherness Peeta and I enjoyed in the brief period of time around the Quarter Quell. When the door has closed behind Haymitch and Peeta has locked it he turns to me and gives me a friendly smile that makes me feel even better inside.

"So what did you want to show me?" I ask.

"Come" he says, leading the way to his sitting room, talking while we walk. "I know we said it would wait until later but I had a fit of inspiration today when I got back home, and honestly it was my first real inspiration to draw anything at all other than depressing stuff since, well, before the hijacking I guess." He walks over to the mantelpiece and picks up a sketchbook. "It's just a sketch, the real thing will of course be on canvas, but it's an outline of sorts and I would love to hear what you think of it. It's probably not very accurate but it will look better once I can study the actual thing more closely. At least you'll get an idea of what it might end up looking like, in terms of composition and such."

He walks up to me and hands me the sketchbook. I look down at the paper and see a primrose flower sketched in delicate details, beautifully shaded and just the kind of thing I had in mind. It doesn't look exactly like a real primrose but he's gotten the general shape of it down and I know that once he can study an actual flower he will be able to recreate it in detail. I open my mouth to tell him I think it's beautiful but instead a sob comes out and I sink down on the couch behind me. Primrose. I've been trying so hard not to think about her, not to let grief consume me, and I was the one who wanted this picture in the first place. Yet seeing the flower she was named for lovingly captured on paper by Peeta's hand makes me miss her terribly and does not at all make me remember fondly the way I thought it would. Instead it hurts. It hurts beyond words to realize once again that I will never get to see her again, or hold her again, or hear her voice.

I can barely see through my tears but I feel the sketchpad being gently taken from my hands and then Peeta's arm is around my shoulders and he's sitting beside me on the couch. In the midst of my sorrow I feel terrible that this is my reaction to something I asked him to do, and which he thought would make me happy.

"I'm sorry" I gasp through my sobs. "It's not… It's lovely, I just…"

"Hush, hush now…" he says gently. "You must miss her so much."

Hearing him put it into words pushes me to the point where I know I won't be able to pull myself together until I've allowed myself to let go and cry. I'm not even bothered anymore that I'm letting this weakness show in front of him. His arm stays around my shoulders and he pulls me close, offering his shoulder to cry on. I lean against his broad chest, feeling comforted in the middle of my pain through his sheer closeness, and he lets me cry without saying a word, which I think is just what I need. Peeta is good with words but I can't imagine that any words in the world could comfort me in this moment so his silence feels like balm to my soul, like he still understands me even after everything they did to take him away from me.

To my own surprise I don't cry for very long. A few minutes of intense sobbing and then the immediate grief subsides a bit, bringing me back to my senses. I don't sit up straight at once, as I perhaps should. Peeta's presence feels so right and just to be back in his embrace, a place I never thought I'd be again, feels better than I can describe. I want to stay like this for as long as he'll allow me but I don't want to overstay my welcome in his arms. I sniffle and sit back up again, wiping my nose with the back of my hand.

"Peeta the drawing is wonderful" I say. "Maybe a little _too_ good" I add with a little chuckle, despite my sadness.

"I'm glad you like it" he answers gently. His hand has moved from my shoulder and is rubbing my back in a soothing way.

"It's exactly what I had in mind" I say, trying to smile a bit while I try to dry my face from all the tears.

"Do you need anything?" he asks. "Can I get you anything?"

I realize all of a sudden just how exhausted I am. It's been a long day following a night with little sleep and the emotional overload mere moments ago seems to have drained me of my last energy. A hot bath would be nice but most of all I just want a chance to compose myself and gather some more energy.

"Actually, would it be alright if I laid down for a while?" I ask. "Just for fifteen minutes, or so. I could use a little more energy before I head out there."

"Of course" says Peeta. His hand leaves my back and he rises to his feet. "There are no bed sheets in the downstairs guestroom but I always keep bedspreads on the beds and there should be some decorative pillows and a blanket or two. You could lie down there for a moment."

"Thank you" I say, feeling a touch wobbly as I rise to my feet.

"Come, I'll show you the way."

I don't need directions, his house is just like mine only mirror-imaged, but I don't voice an objection. I let him lead me to the bedroom on the downstairs floor and gratefully I lie down on the bed with my head on the pillow Peeta grabs from an armchair.

"I'll only be a few minutes" I promise.

"It's alright" he assures me. "Do you want some water?"

"Sure, that would be great."

He leaves the room and heads for the kitchen, leaving the door open so that I can hear him moving around. I curl up on my side in a foetal position, wondering to myself if I actually will be able to get off this bed and put my coat and boots on and walk the short distance back to my own house. My whole body feels so heavy and every movement seems draining.

Peeta comes back after about a minute, carrying a large glass of water. He's added three ice cubes and a thin cucumber slice and I smile a little at the memory of how they used to have large pitchers of ice water in the bakery, also with thin slices of cucumber in them. Some things seem to be ingrained in his memory still, regardless of what they did to him in the Capitol.

"Here you go" he says, kneeling by the bed to get in level with me.

I lift myself up on my elbow and take the glass in my hand, taking a few sips of the cool water. Out of nowhere tears begin to well up in my eyes again and I think about having to go back to my empty house in just a short while. It's been a while now since I've felt taken care of; Greasy Sae stopped coming by when I began to get my life in order again and she started working on building a new shop for herself. The simple gesture of bringing me a glass of water brings to mind all the little things my mother and my sister used to do for me, and the things I used to do for them.

"Hey…" says Peeta gently, his fingers reaching up to wipe away the new tears but I know there will only be more to follow.

"I just feel so alone" I admit to him in a moment of uncharacteristic vulnerability. "In that big house, just me and the cat, no Mother, no Prim…" My voice breaks when I say her name and I'm back to sobbing.

"I know" says Peeta. "I know how lonely and empty it must be. Prim, she had a way of filling up a room with her presence, didn't she?"

I nod and hold out the glass for him to take before I accidentally drop it on the ground or something. I don't think I can handle heading back to that house tonight. I will have to go to Haymitch and have his company until the sun begins to rise and the loneliness will feel a little less palpable.

Then Peeta rises to his feet and moves over to the foot of the bed. From there he climbs up and comes to lay down right behind me, tentatively wrapping an arm around my waist, perhaps unsure if I will allow the breech of personal space. My tears keep coming but for a short moment I feel an unexpected warmth and – almost – joy. I remember so well those nights on the train when he held me like this during the night, even if he doesn't remember or chooses not to remember. It's like having another little piece of the real _him_ back and it means more to me than he can ever know.

I move my hand down and rest it on top of his to show that I allow and as a matter of fact welcome this intimacy between us. He pulls back a little but only to grab the blanket he put on the bed for me, which I didn't bother wrapping over myself. He pulls the blanket over us and it makes me realize I am shivering and he probably thinks I'm cold. He then moves closer to me and it feels just like old times and it makes it even harder to face the reality that I have to get up and leave in less than fifteen minutes and head back home to a lonely house and an even lonelier bed.

I close my eyes and continue to cry silently. Peeta's face comes to rest just beside my neck, making me feel every exhale, and I imagine that I can feel or hear his steady heartbeat the way I always could when I let his chest serve as my pillow. Slowly my tears subside and I begin to feel relaxed and even comfortable. Peeta stays silent, offering me his comfort without interfering with my grief. I open my eyes to check what time it is but can't seem to locate a clock from the position I'm lying in, and I'm damn sure not going to move an inch unless I know the fifteen minutes I asked for are up. I feel my eyelids grow heavy and I allow myself just a brief moment of closing them again. I can't remember the last time I felt at peace like this and I want to enjoy it for whatever few moments are left. The thought brings on new tears and I bury my face in the pillow.

* * *

I wake up in the middle of the night, but not from a nightmare. In fact I don't know what it was that woke me but it doesn't make a difference. Even though the room is in darkness and it's unfamiliar to me I instantly know where I am, and who I'm with. I must have cried myself to sleep and Peeta let me sleep on, curled up safe in his embrace. He's still here with me, the "puh"-like sound he makes in his sleep with every exhale blowing a puff of air at my neck each time.

Despite the difficult ending to the day I feel genuine happiness. I had almost forgotten what a luxurious feeling it is to sleep in his embrace and how good it feels to not be alone in the night. Reason tells me that this night is an exception and that I can't expect to get to fall asleep with him like this every night like I would want to if I could but for tonight I am going to enjoy it to its fullest.

With a smile on my lips I close my eyes and drift off to sleep again, for the first time in a long time without fear of what I might see in my dreams.


	4. Chapter 4

After that first day of snowfall it gets warm again and most of the snow melts. It's not until late November that winter seems to arrive for real with temperatures well below freezing and some heavy snowfall that makes even me grab a shovel to create a path to my door.

Peeta's house becomes our main meeting place. We gather every other night to have dinner and a bit of human contact, though more often than not Haymitch falls asleep on the couch when it's time to clean up after the meal. Peeta and I never mention the one night I spent in his guestroom and it's almost as if it never even happened. What reminds me that it did happen is that slowly, steadily, Peeta and I are growing closer again. It feels like we're becoming friends in a way we haven't been before. We don't touch each other all that often, and when it happens it's usually one person brushing against the other accidentally or our fingers brushing when one of us hands something to the other, but the touches feel natural now and I enjoy the slight tingling feeling I get whenever his skin meets mine.

One evening Peeta and I are doing the dishes in comfortable silence when a sudden loud howling sound catches our attention. It's dark out already but the lights from the lamp posts are enough to allow us to see what is going on. Peeta walks over to the nearest window and frowns.

"The wind is really picking up speed" he says. "Looks like we might have a real snow storm on our hands."

"First of the winter" I remark.

"And hopefully the last." With a troubled look on his face he walks over and takes the dish brush from my hand. "Leave the dishes. Go wake up Haymitch. You two had better get home while you still can."

I want to protest. The idea of being snowed in all by myself in my big, lonely house makes me very uncomfortable and a little scared, and I would much rather spend a snowstorm here with Peeta and Haymitch, but I don't want to suggest it to Peeta in case he prefers sitting it out alone. He does seem rather concerned as he keeps looking out the window with a furrowed brow.

"I'll get Haymitch" I mumble. I walk into the sitting room, grab a pillow and hit Haymitch over the head with it. "Get up!"

He wakes up with a snort and lifts himself up to a sitting position, rubbing his eyes and looking confused.

"What? What's going on?"

"There's a snowstorm coming."

"Well it _is_ winter" he replies dryly, yawning big.

"We need to go" I say. "Or we'll end up snowed in here."

"Oh the horror" yawns Haymitch. He lays back down, curls up on his side facing the back of the couch and clearly has no intention of leaving his warm spot by the fireplace in favour of the cold outside.

I look from Haymitch to the window, though I can't see much out of it. I can't see the point in putting a lot of effort into getting him off the couch when I don't want to leave either. Instead I walk back into the kitchen where Peeta is still doing the dishes with the same displeased facial expression.

"Haymitch doesn't want to go" I say.

Peeta sighs, puts down the plate he was washing and walks into the sitting room. I follow in his tracks, a bit annoyed by his determination to get rid of us.

"Haymitch!" he says.

"Forget it boy, I'm not heading out into that storm when I've got a perfectly good spot here on the couch."

Peeta grabs the bottle of white liquor Haymitch put on the coffee table and without flinching he empties its contents over Haymitch's head. Our old mentor flies up into sitting, sputtering and cursing and waving an imaginary knife at Peeta who looks completely unfazed by the reaction.

"Well now you're up" he says, putting the empty bottle down on the table.

"Are you crazy?" yells Haymitch. "That was my last bottle!"

"You know what, I really don't care." Peeta grabs him by the hand and pulls him up to his feet. "The wind is howling outside and the snow is falling heavily. If you're not out the door in a few minutes you might not make it back to your own house before the storm kicks into full gear."

"Can't we just stay here?" I ask.

"The hell we are" snarls Haymitch, pulling himself loose from Peeta and stumbling in the direction of the door that leads through the kitchen to the downstairs hallway. "Apparently you're _both_ strangely disagreeable people these days."

I realize that Haymitch probably won't be able to walk back to his own house without assistance given his current condition. I also realize that if that was indeed his last bottle of liquor then he's not going to be much fun to be around in the upcoming days. No wonder Peeta wants him to go home. I sure don't want to be cooped up with Haymitch when he's going through withdrawal. Reluctantly I follow him, trying to avoid stepping in the drops of white liquor that have fallen from him on his way to the door.

Peeta tries to help Haymitch get his coat and gloves on but Haymitch is much too angry with him for wasting alcohol and refuses to let him. I dress myself quietly, uncomfortable seeing those two be at odds with each other. When I reach for my scarf I notice that Peeta still has the same winter coat that he had when the first snow fell. He's going to be freezing cold now that winter has come for real.

"I thought you were getting a new coat" I comment.

"Huh?" Peeta takes his attention off of Haymitch. "Oh. I am. In fact I was supposed to pick it up tomorrow but judging by this weather that's not going to be possible."

"Want me to pick it up for you once the weather clears?" I offer. "The coat you have isn't going to be enough to keep you warm all the way into town after the storm."

"No that's okay" he says quickly. "I don't mind."

I wrap my scarf around my neck and grab Haymitch by the arm. He reeks of white liquor but at least the smell isn't coming mostly from his breath for once.

"Come on, old drunkard, let's get going."

"Who are you calling an old drunkard?" snarls Haymitch.

"Walk safe" says Peeta, opening the door for us. "Hey Katniss…"

I stop in the doorway, even though we should move quickly and not let too much of the wind and snow inside.

"Yes?"

"Give me a call when you've gotten home" he says, almost hesitantly.

Feeling a little bit better I offer him a smile.

"I'll do that."

I lead Haymitch outside and fight the urge to close my eyes to protect them from the wind and the icy-sharp snow that's blowing everywhere.

* * *

The snow keeps howling for another two days. I spend those days isolated and lonely in my house, feeling the absence of my mother and sister more than I ever think I have before. My only company is Buttercup, who thankfully chooses to curl up in my lap every once in a while, perhaps in as great a need for physical contact with another living being as I am. Oftentimes I find myself sitting in my mother's empty bedroom, looking out the window even though there's nothing to see but the falling snow. Somewhere out there is Peeta's house. I long for him, too, not just for my mother and sister. I long for the Peeta I knew on the other side of District Thirteen and the end of the Quarter Quell. The Peeta I saw a strong glimpse of that night when I cried myself to sleep in his guestroom. I don't think that Peeta would have shooed Haymitch and me out of his house when a snowstorm hit.

In my mind I imagine all kinds of reasons why Peeta didn't want us there. Haymitch's probable withdrawal is one. Another is that he might be worried that he'll have a flashback and that it won't end well if he and I are essentially locked in the house together. Maybe he doesn't have food enough for three people to ride out a snowstorm. Perhaps he simply wants to be alone.

"I miss him, Buttercup…" I admit with a sigh, scratching behind the cat's right ear. My heart begins to grow even lonelier. "I miss Prim… I miss my father and my mother…" I close my eyes hard, trying to prevent the tears from falling. "It's just you and me now, old cat. What a sorry team we make."

Buttercup meows, as if to protest. I keep scratching behind his ear, finding at least a little bit if comfort in his presence, though I have to fight with myself not to start thinking of Prim when her cat is on my lap.

Eventually I lift the cat up in my arms and carry him to the kitchen where I serve him dinner before opening my refrigerator to find something for myself to eat. Nothing looks appetizing and I feel even more isolated at the thought of having to eat dinner alone. It's hard to feel hungry for anything when I know I will be sitting by the kitchen table all by myself while I eat. Eventually I decide to simply skip dinner. I'm hungry but not excessively so, and it wouldn't be the first time I've gone to bed without having had dinner. I just can't bring myself to prepare anything. I grab the last apple from the bowl on the counter and chew on it while I walk into the sitting room to turn the TV on, hoping the storm won't result in too much static.

* * *

When the storm has finally ended I reluctantly leave the house to get the shovelling of snow out of the way. Sometimes I admit there are things I miss from the days between our two Games, specifically that people employed by the Capitol took care of things like tending the garden and shovelling the snow. I'm beginning to consider hiring somebody to do the job but I haven't gotten very far in that thinking process yet.

It takes me a long time to clear away enough snow so that I can easily move from the door to the street, where thankfully they have ploughed the worst. It's a cold day out but I'm sweating heavily and I head back inside to take a shower. Once I'm dry again and my hair has been braided I decide to go see Peeta. It's been a while since we've gone two days without seeing one another and I want to know how he rode out the storm. I smile when I think that perhaps his house will smell of freshly baked bread and that if he's been out shovelling snow too today his face might be flushed from the fresh air and exercise.

Buttercup stands by the front door, meowing unhappily. I open the door for him but he shudders and stays put, still meowing and looking at me like he thinks I'm supposed to take away the cold and the snow just for him. I give him a look while I put my boots on.

"Either man up and go outside or stop whining about it" I say. "Preferably go outside. Cleaning your litter box is not something I do for fun." I stand up and put my coat on, then grab the cat. "It's just a bit of snow, you big wimp."

I open the door and send the cat flying into a pile of snow, resulting in indignant meows and a lot of sputtering. He looks at me and hisses, trying to regain some of his lost dignity, and then sticks his head in the air and trots off down the path I have created. I chuckle a bit and close the door behind me.

The snow crackles under my boots as I head down the path to the road and the sun reflecting off of it is almost too bright. I squint and look up at the clear blue sky which show absolutely no signs of the storm that raged for over fifty hours. I wonder what it's like out in the woods today. I can't say I have a longing to go out there. Trudging through deep snow when I don't need fresh game to fill my belly doesn't seem worth it.

As I walk toward Peeta's house I send a look in the direction of Haymitch's. To my surprise he's actually outdoors too, cursing loudly as he wields his shovel. He doesn't seem at all affected by the lack of alcohol in his system during the storm. I wonder if he's got a secret stash somewhere, and if so, if I ought to find it.

"Lovely day, isn't it?" I say cheerfully, knowing it will annoy him.

"On days like this I long back to the good old days of tyranny and oppression when I at least didn't have to shovel my own damn snow" he snarls in reply.

"Don't strain your back, old man. I'll see you at Peeta's tonight for dinner?"

"Maybe" he mutters. Apparently he's not forgiven Peeta for the thing with the white liquor quite yet.

I walk up to Peeta's house and knock on the door. Without waiting for an answer I walk inside and call his name to alert him to my presence. I smile when the smell of freshly baked goods fills my nose. He hasn't made bread but he's made something even better – cinnamon rolls.

"In the kitchen, Katniss" his voice calls in response to my greeting.

Steadying myself with a hand to the wall I reach down and begin to tug at the laces of my boots. Peeta is very particular about taking off your shoes when you walk through the door of his house. I think he wants to keep the dirt of the street out of his kitchen. When I put my coat up on a hanger I notice the new winter coat hanging where his old, worn one used to be. Surprised to see it I reach out my fingers and gently let them graze the fabric. The coat is navy blue and looks well made even if it's nothing fancy. It's bound to keep him warm through winter.

"I see you've got your new coat" I say as I walk to the kitchen.

"Yeah, picked it up today."

I stop on the threshold and allow myself a moment of looking at him while he's occupied with the second batch of rolls. Sometimes I think his standard baking outfit – comfortable slacks, a t-shirt and an apron – is the look I like the best on him. It just seems to be the look that's most genuinely _him_. His hair is tousled and his cheeks do indeed look a bit flushed and I long for the moment when his eyes will look up and meet with mine.

"You must have left early" I say, continuing the conversation about the coat just to hear his voice answering me. "You should have let me get it. It's really cold out."

"No, it was fine" he insists. "I had an errand to run in town anyway. Including, but not limited to, buying more booze for Haymitch." He finally looks at me and smiles. "What did you think of it? The coat, I mean. It's nice, right?"

"Yeah" I agree.

"I think I'm going to have a new sweater made by the same tailor" he says. "Or a shirt, perhaps."

"Okay" I say, walking up to the kitchen counter where he's working. The subject of the coat is no longer keeping my interest. "You're baking cinnamon rolls?"

I've always adored the smell of cinnamon rolls and I have vivid memories of my tenth birthday when my father surprised me by coming home from the mines with a bag holding two large ones from the bakery. It was a lot of money to spend on food that barely qualifies as food and is eaten for the flavour and not for its nutrients but it was his and my mother's birthday present to me. I remember I got to have one of the buns all to myself while my father shared the other one with Prim. My mother didn't want one. The flavour of the pastry seemed to stay in my mouth for weeks afterward and I've never tasted one since, not even in the Capitol. But I oftentimes did smell it when I walked past the bakery and a customer walked through the door. Prim loved to stop by the bakery's store window to look at the beautiful cakes but I liked stopping there because of the lovely scents.

"The first batch were cinnamon rolls" says Peeta. "These are going to have a bit of custard on them."

"Interesting" I say, my eyes glued to the dough he's working with.

He looks at me, chuckles and cuts off another slice of the rolled dough. Instead of putting it in a paper cup he holds it out to me.

"Here."

I stare at it with wide eyes.

"You're giving me dough?"

"You're practically salivating" he laughs. "Try it. It's good. On days when my mother was in a good mood she'd sometimes let us have the small ends of the dough roll."

I take the slice of dough and smile at the feel of it in my fingers. Then I shove it in my mouth unceremoniously and close my eyes when the flavour hits my taste buds. I let out a loud moan and when I hear Peeta's laughter I open my eyes again.

"Good?" he asks with a mischievous glint in his eye.

"Amazing" I say, mouth still full of dough. "I don't know why you're thinking of baking this when it's incredible as is."

He gives me a playful nudge and goes back to his task at hand. I walk over to the kitchen table and take a seat, savouring the last bit of dough that's still in my mouth. Peeta whistles a cheerful tune as he finishes putting slices of dough in the paper cups. He applies a coat of raw, battered eggs to each bun-to-be and sprinkles pearled sugar on top. Then he puts the whole tin in the oven. He closes the oven door, sets a timer and brushes his fingers on his apron.

"Wait till you try the cinnamon rolls."

My grin seems so wide it almost hurts.

"I get to try one?"

"Most of them I have a special purpose for" he says, walking over to the refrigerator to get a bottle of milk. "I set aside a few who didn't look so nice. Between you and me I don't think the shape will matter, right?"

"They can look like flattened bugs for all I care" I admit with a shrug. "That's good, though, that you're selling baked goods again."

"Not much else I can do for a living" he shrugs, getting a plate from a cabinet.

"At least you have something to do" I point out. "All I know how to do is hunt and be unsociable."

"You're not so bad" smiles Peeta. He lifts a towel covering a large rack of rolls and selects two of them, putting them on the plate. "Get two glasses and bring the milk to the table, would you?"

I do as asked and soon we're sitting opposite each other, each with a large glass of cold milk and a still warm cinnamon roll in front of us.

"I've always wanted to try one of these again" I admit with childlike excitement.

"Sounds like you haven't had enough experience with cinnamon buns. I sense a story here."

I grab one of the rolls and let my fingers lightly tread over its surface, feeling each and every pearl of sugar on top of it. I tell Peeta my story, embellishing it with as many details as I can remember, and he listens without a word. When I've reached the story's end I find myself remembering that Haymitch told me they reminded Peeta of me telling him the story of the goat while he was in District 13, and how the only thing Peeta had asked about afterward was the goat.

"It was probably my mother who made those cinnamon rolls" says Peeta, oblivious to my change in moods. "My father never made them but she would let us kids help her out with them. It's one of the first things we learned how to make."

I don't like knowing that his witch of a mother was most likely behind one of my favourite childhood memories so I quickly lift the pastry from its cup and take a big bite to distract myself. My eyes close again and I whimper slightly. It tastes just as I remember.

I stay in his kitchen the rest of the afternoon, keeping him company while he works. After the rolls with custard he goes back to making bread but he declines my offer to help him knead the dough. Instead I'm put on clean-up duty which is usually not my favourite task but after the isolation during the storm I'm happy to do anything as long as I can do it in his company, and as long as I can hear his laughter.

* * *

Slowly the winter months pass by. We keep meeting at Peeta's house every other night for dinner but as winter stretches on we more and more often take turns buying food in town instead of relying on my hunting to feed us. Game is scarce this time of year and what animals I do find are usually rather malnourished. I don't need to kill them to put food on the table and so it seems wasteful to do so now, instead of waiting until winter is over and they've gotten more to eat and will bring us more meat. By early March Peeta offers to take over the full responsibility for buying food, which Haymitch applauds and I question. Peeta and I have agreed over the past few months that it's good for Haymitch to have to walk into town at least once a week and get a little bit of fresh air and some company other than ours. Besides, it doesn't make any sense that Peeta should have to buy all the food. Money isn't an issue since we still have more than we can spend in a lifetime but I like having even divisions of labour. Earlier on I hunted, Peeta baked and Haymitch began to do most of the actual cooking. I don't like the idea of just arriving at Peeta's several nights a week having a meal served for me when I contributed nothing to it.

"You can do all the dishes and I will be a very happy guy" smirks Peeta in response when I mention this to him.

"Not on your life" I snort. I've come to enjoy doing the dishes together with him, taking turns washing and drying. I'm not about to do all of it by myself while Peeta and Haymitch make themselves comfortable in front of the fireplace.

"All I'm saying is that I like going in to town" says Peeta. "I like getting the fresh air, I'm starting to feel like I'm getting back into shape, I enjoy seeing all those people and just getting out of the house for a bit. I might as well do the shopping when I'm in town, that's all I'm saying."

"What are you even doing in town so many days a week?" I ask, not really grasping what is so interesting about going in there all the time.

"I talk to people" shrugs Peeta. "I check in on Sae once a week. I'm scouting for a good place to build a new bakery."

"You bake here" I point out. "Why do you need another building for that?"

"I feel so isolated out here, Katniss" he says. "Can you understand that?"

I can. And I do admit that it's nice to go into town every once in a while and see how life is starting to return to the district but I've become less comfortable in larger crowds. I enjoy the physical presence of other people but I find the mindless chatter so meaningless. Always the same conversations about the weather and how great it is that we don't have to slave away for the Capitol anymore and exchanges of platitudes and things of that ilk. When I go to town I make a list of the shops I want to visit and I stick to them and then head back home. It seems like Peeta can flutter from one shop to the next all day just to socialise.

I don't begrudge him the social contact. I can see that it's doing him good. He's slowly becoming more and more like his old self and seems more at ease these days. He's often in a good mood and from what I can tell he's having fewer and fewer hijack attacks. If going into town several days a week helps that then I'm all for it. It's the part where he provides everything for our meals that makes me uncomfortable. I don't want to feel beholden to anyone, not even him, not even for something like that which I know he would never consider a debt in the first place.

"You're really nice to offer to buy everything" I say finally. "But I kind of need to have something to do, too, you know? I'll go crazy if I just drift around and…"

An apologetic look comes over his face.

"Katniss I'm sorry" he says. "I didn't even think about it like that. I didn't mean to… I mean, I know you miss being out hunting…"

"It's okay" I say, feeling a little bit better.

"I know it's important to you to be self-sufficient and to do your part and I respect that, in fact I think that's a very admirable mind-set to have and most people could benefit from thinking that way" he continues. "I just don't want you to forget that you can let go sometimes, too." His face turns into a sad smile. "We help and protect each other, right? You and I? We take care of one another?"

I find myself smiling the way I always smile when I see something _Peeta_ coming back in him.

"That's what we do" I acknowledge. "Protect each other. Take care of one another." My own smile turns a touch sad as well. "You do help me and look after me. Like that time after the first snowfall when…"

He nods slowly. His hand comes up and caresses my cheek in a far too brief, comforting gesture.

"Anytime you need that kind of help, Katniss…" he says.

I nod and smile.

"I know. Thank you."

We don't say anything else about who will buy the food, we both know we will keep things the way they've been. Routines are supposed to be good for us, anyhow. But for the rest of the evening I can still feel a tingling sensation on my skin where Peeta touched my cheek.


	5. Chapter 5

I'm standing beside my front door, still with my coat and boots on, leaning back against the wall while I look through the mail I just picked up from the mailbox. Mail never interested me before but since the end of the war my mother writes to me and occasionally Johanna or Cressida or someone else from the Star Squad. Every now and then I also get some form of government related mail, like Plutarch wanting me to consider giving an interview for television or writing an inspiring column for the new national newspaper or agreeing to let some writer come here and write my life story. Those letters tend to make good fodder for the fireplace.

As I shift through the mail I find three such letters, only one is addressed to Haymitch and one to Peeta. For some reason all three ended up in my mailbox. I'm tempted to just throw all three letters on the fire, unopened, but it's not up for me to decide what to do with the two letters that aren't mine. I know Haymitch enjoys using such letters as target practice when he throws knives. I'm sure Peeta has some personal usage for it as well.

Since I haven't yet gotten out of my outdoor clothes I head right back outside to deliver the letters to the rightful owners. There's a shift in the temperature today, finally a sign that spring is on its way. I am more than tired of this particular winter and I look forward to being out in the woods when spring arrives. I unbutton my coat and leave it hanging open, feeling warm enough without it closed. I really hope spring is actually coming and that we won't have a winter setback in a few days, or weeks.

I step inside Haymitch's house and immediately hear the sound of his loud snoring. Shrugging my shoulder I leave the envelope on his kitchen table and walk back out to the street, steering my steps in the direction of Peeta's home.

I catch him just as he's walking out the door, dressed in that blue winter coat even though it's a touch too warm for it today. I can't say that I mind, though. The colour of the coat goes really well with his blonde hair and it brings out the blue in his eyes even more. At first I felt a bit embarrassed when I realized I noticed it but by now it's happened so often that it's almost like second nature to me.

"Hey" I say. "Going somewhere?"

"In to town" he says. "What's that in your hand?"

"Letter from our best buddies in the Capitol" I say, waving the envelope in the air. "Yours and Haymitch's ended up in my letterbox by mistake."

"Did you read yours?" he asks, stepping down from the porch and taking the letter from my hand. "Do you know what it's about?"

"I haven't _read _one of these letters in months" I point out.

He studies the envelope for a moment, walking down the path that leads from his front door to the road, and sticks the letter in the letterbox.

"So I can remember to pick it up later" he explains. "I don't want to bring it with me and I can't be bothered going back inside."

"So you read those things?" I question, walking up beside him.

"Sometimes they're from Dr. Aurelius and I need to stick with his program" he says. We begin to walk down the road together but he stops when we reach my house. "So are you going out to the woods today?"

"I think it's too early yet" I answer. "Springtime in the forest is lovely… _Melting_ time, however, is not."

"I'm pretty sure it won't start melting until the thermometer goes into above-freezing temperatures" he points out.

"I'd rather not take my chances. Besides, I'll have all summer and autumn to enjoy the forest. I'll walk with you to town, if that's okay. I've been putting off going there for over a week so I might as well get it done today."

"Oh" he says, looking hesitant. "No, that's okay. I've got a lot to do while I'm there so I won't be much company."

"That's fine" I assure him. He doesn't have to talk much so long as he is nearby.

"No, I wouldn't want to take up your time."

"It's not a problem" I say with a small laugh. "Like I said, I haven't been to town in far too long anyway. Not since it was my turn to buy the groceries last week. I really ought to stop by the pharmacy and I've got one or two other errands to run. Like, for instance, buying groceries."

He seems to think it over for a moment, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Then he gives me a hesitant smile.

"Okay, we'll go together" he says. "If you're sure. But seriously, you don't have to."

"Duly noted."

I'm tempted to link my arm with his as we begin to walk down the road, the way I used to do when we were out in public together. My heart feels light and my spirits are high. Finally spring is here and this year it truly feels like rebirth. This is the first year without death and destruction and horrible threats hanging over my head. I know I will spend many hours crying over how it's also the first whole year without Prim but for now my focus is on the good things. Winter is nearing its end and we've got a chance to start fresh. Peeta and I seem to grow closer each week and oftentimes I find I live for the way I feel when he's around me. That happiness was not supposed to exist anymore, not for me. Peeta somehow seems to make it possible and he doesn't even know it.

We don't talk much as we walk but that's fine with me. Gale and I could be quiet together for hours and there are very few people I can have comfortable silences with so sharing one with Peeta only feels natural and good. Once we start drawing near town I turn to him with a smile on my face.

"So, where to first?"

"Oh…" he says, seeming a bit unsure. "You know, why don't we just split up and meet up again when we're heading home? It would save us a lot of time."

"True" I admit. But I want to spend time with him. "I'm not in a hurry, though."

He shrugs a shoulder.

"I suppose I'm not either."

"So, then. Where do you want to go first?"

"Seamstress" he says as we reach the street where most shops are. "I'm getting a new shirt made and hopefully I can pick it up today."

"Are you in a hurry?" I ask, somewhat incredulously. I cannot imagine what he might need a new shirt for at this point in time.

"No" he chuckles, though it doesn't sound entirely believable. "Just refreshing my wardrobe. I really liked this coat, so…"

"Alright" I say with a shrug. "Lead the way."

He leads me around a corner down a smaller street which I've never really visited before. Most of my shopping is done on the main street, though I really long for the good old days when the Hob housed several different booths and I didn't have to run from one house to the other. Aside from the main street there are two or three smaller streets that have shops as well and to my amazement it looks like District 12 might actually end up with a real shopping district, smaller in size but still reminiscent of the several blocks large shopping district of the Capitol.

We walk inside a small shop consisting of a room no larger than my bedroom. There's a door that leads to a back room where, from what little I can see through the door opening, the clothes are actually made. I can see a sewing machine and what looks like clothes' patterns. The store itself has almost no finished clothing. Instead it consists mainly of cloth of various fabrics and colours laid out on large tables.

When we stepped through the door a small bell alerted the shopkeeper of our presence. After a moment she appears, walking in from the back room, her face lighting up in a bright smile. She's young, much younger than what I had expected, probably still a teenager just like Peeta and I. I find myself staring at her hair, which falls in loose waves down to her collar bone. It's the colour of mahogany, which makes me think of Effie Trinket.

"Peeta!" she says happily, walking around the counter where she keeps the cash register. "I'm almost finished. I swear! All that's left is the button holes but that part usually takes quite a while."

"That's alright" says Peeta cheerfully, even though he seemed in such a rush to come and get his shirt.

"I will get the button holes done before tomorrow, I swear."

Bored with the idea of listening to their discussion of a shirt I begin to walk slowly through the store, examining the various pieces of cloth. Perhaps I ought to start thinking about a new wardrobe as well. My closet still holds several treasures from Cinna but most of them are too fine for everyday wear. The rest of my closet consists of two pairs of pants, a few worn-out shirts and my mother's old sweater, a warm and big old red thing she's had for so many years that it's becoming a rather _faded_ red.

I've just decided that I will ask this girl if she can make some clothes for me as well when the sound of her laughter catches my attention. It's a very happy, almost pearly kind of laughter and I haven't heard a sound like that in what seems like forever. I barely even remember the sound of truly carefree laughter. I look up and see her smiling brightly, putting a hand on Peeta's arm as she replies to whatever he said that caused her to laugh.

I notice the smile on Peeta's face. And I notice the look in his eyes. For a second I almost don't recognize it. It's something I haven't seen in quite a while, something I had accepted that I would never get to see again. It's a look on his face that I have only ever seen before when he's looked at me.

Suddenly it all begins to make sense. Peeta's reluctance to have me accompany him today. His sudden need for a whole new wardrobe. His many trips into town. His brighter spirits lately. Pain rises in me so fast that I lose my footing a little, reaching back to grab onto something to steady myself. It turns out to be a book with fabric samples and when I put my hand on it, it falls from the shelf and down on the floor causing a clatter that gets the attention of both Peeta and the girl.

"Oops" I mutter, diving to the floor to pick up the book, thankful to have something to look at besides Peeta and this girl and thankful that they can't read the discomfort on my face because of the table blocking me from their view. "Sorry."

"Let me get that" says the girl, walking over to me and kneeling to help me out.

"It's okay, I've got it" I say a touch harshly. Her hand lands on mine as I grab the book but I pull it back and rise to my feet. I don't want to be touched by this girl. I need some time to think all of this over first. "Sorry about your book."

"That's alright" she says. "It's not broken. It can handle a fall to the ground."

"Peeta let's go!" I say.

"There's no rush" he says, looking a bit confused.

"Your shirt isn't finished yet" I say. "Let's not waste her time. We have other things to do today so let's get going."

For a horrible moment he looks from me to her, uncertainty written on his face. If he tells me to go ahead while he stays behind to chat with her I think I might lose my temper, if not my mind. He doesn't get the chance to decide what he would prefer to do, staying with her or going with me, because the girl decides for him.

"She's right, you should go ahead." She gives me a brief smile but then turns her attention fully to Peeta, walking towards him. "Come back tomorrow."

"I'll do that" he says, a glint in his eyes that makes me feel sick to my stomach.

I walk straight for the door and pull it open, eager to get out of here as fast as humanly possible. I've never experienced a feeling like the one that's burning hot inside me right now but I definitely do not like it and I want to get away as fast as I can. I want Peeta to come with me, too. The thought of leaving him here with her makes me feel even worse and I'm glad that he's not staying but at the same time it bothers me that it was her who convinced him not to stay.

"Come on" I say sharply.

Peeta turns towards the girl and gives her another one of those looks and I have to turn my face away. I hear him saying something to her in a low, soft voice and I hear her responding in a similar tone but thankfully I can't make out their words. Then I hear him bidding her goodbye until tomorrow and I step outside before I can hear her reply. When Peeta joins me out on the street half a minute later I'm afraid that he might give me a strange look and want to know what my behaviour was all about but he just nods in the direction of the pharmacy and we begin to walk. He sticks his hands in his pockets and has a smile on his face that bothers me now that I can guess what brought the smile on.

I say nothing to him until we've visited the pharmacy and bought our ointments and pills. At first I decide not to say anything at all to him about what I saw in that seamstress' store but at the same time I feel a strong need to know more about it.

"She seemed awfully eager to see you" I comment. "Doesn't get a lot of customers, does she?"

It's a cheap shot but Peeta doesn't seem to notice.

"You know, that book that fell to the floor?" he says. "That's the only book she owns. It's not even a real _book_, just a collection of fabric samples. There's something sad about that, don't you think?"

"What? Peeta most people barely have homes or families anymore. What difference does it make if a person has books?"

He shrugs, using his left hand to unbutton his coat, apparently realizing by now that it's a bit too warm for a winter coat today.

"I don't know" he says. "My parents had three fiction books. I read each of them so many times that my mother eventually told me not to touch them or they might end up falling apart."

This is news to me. He's never mentioned anything about this before, or even about enjoying literature.

"They must have been good books."

"They were okay. They were the only ones we had so I had to make do. They were a way to escape, you know?"

"So what you wish to do with yourself now that there's peace is to make sure everyone has a book to read?" I ask.

"It would be nice if Lace had a book with actual words in it" he says with a coy smile.

"Who's Lace?" I ask.

"Lace, the seamstress" he says with a chuckle. "Lace Bomull. You were in her store with me about fifteen minutes ago. Any memories springing to mind?"

"Oh, her" I say. "I had already forgotten about her." Quite the blatant lie but I can't bring myself to acknowledge her.

"I'm thinking maybe I should call or write Effie and ask her to send me a book from the Capitol" Peeta goes on, still with that smile on his face. "And give to Lace, as a thank you for making so many new clothes for me."

"You are paying her, aren't you?" I say, thinking to myself that it ought to be she who gives something nice to Peeta as a thank you for bringing her so much business even though he really doesn't need this many new clothes.

"Of course" he answers with a chuckle. "But she's worked hard and it seems nice to acknowledge that."

"By giving her a book? You don't even know if she likes to read, or if she'll enjoy whatever book Effie gets her hands on. Knowing Effie it will probably be something vapid and shallow about shopping or party planning."

The thought occurs to me that perhaps this seamstress girl would enjoy a book about shopping but I keep that thought to myself. Reason tells me I have no actual grounds to dislike this person. All I know about her is that she's from District Eight, makes clothes, makes a lot of clothes for Peeta, and has mahogany hair and a pearly laughter...

And Peeta looked at her in a way he's only ever looked at me before.

The thought makes me feel bad in a way I've never felt bad before. In Thirteen I came to accept that Peeta finally saw the real me and could only hate what he saw. Accepting that was one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life and looking back I wonder if maybe there was more to my sadness than the loss of someone seeing only the best in me. When the war was over and Peeta came back home I started to believe that we could go back to where we had once been, that he could remember what we once meant to each other. Instead I had to come to terms with the knowledge that, while he no longer hates me, he's not in love with me anymore either. That transition has been so very difficult and I'm not fully resigned to it yet.

Do I now also have to accept that Peeta can look at other women in ways he only used to look at me? That he could feel attraction and perhaps even infatuation with someone else? Of course I want things like that for him – in the future. Not right now. Not yet. I haven't yet fully found _my_ Peeta again and I definitely don't want to have to think of him as someone else's Peeta. And the bitter truth is that I _miss_ him looking at me like that.

This girl, this Lace, is probably no more than a flirtation. He's an eighteen year-old boy, of course he's going to notice girls. He told me in our first arena that he'd noticed other girls than me, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that he could do so now. Really, I should see it as a good sign that his charm and his charisma are beginning to come back. I just don't want him to be flirting with other girls yet. And certainly not right in front of me! I don't like what that implies but whatever it is I'm not comfortable with it. Truthfully I'm not sure I ever want him to be doing that with anybody else, though I know the door has closed on him feeling that way about me.

"I think you've got enough new clothes for now" I say in a rather cold tone of voice. "It doesn't look good, Peeta."

"Doesn't look good?" He sounds nonplussed. "You've seen some of the things she's made. Just look at this coat!"

"No, I don't mean the look of the clothes themselves" I say, getting irritated. "I mean that people are trying to rebuild their lives and many don't have money for more than their daily meals. You running around buying a dozen shirts you really don't need isn't going to paint a good picture in the public eye."

"I think you're wrong" he says carelessly.

"You think I'm wrong?"

"I think the money that I do have is best put to use by me buying things. I buy shirts from Lace, she gets more money, she can spend that money elsewhere and, well you get the idea. How's my money going to help anyone in my wallet or in the bank box in my study?"

"Maybe consider distributing your wealth more evenly, then" I retort. "Or we're going to have a well-off seamstress and everyone else in town will still be poor."

"I don't think that will be much of a problem" chuckles Peeta. "Like I said, she spends the money buying from other people and that's the whole circle of economy or whatever they called it in school."

"Unless she spends the money on more fabric and nice threads from the Capitol" I reply surly.

"Katniss I haven't forgotten about Portia" says Peeta with a slight sadness in his smile, completely misreading my irritation. "Or Cinna. But they're gone now and we still need clothes."

"A whole new wardrobe, it seems" I mutter. "Going on tour again?"

"Not in the near future, no" he smirks.

I snort and warp my arms around myself, feeling colder now than I did earlier in the day. The sun is, at the moment, hidden behind a patch of clouds and it goes well with the mood I'm currently in. What bothers me the most is probably the fact that I'm getting this bent out of shape over seeing Peeta flirt with one girl. What is the big deal, really? Why should it bother me even if he decided to flirt with every girl we meet from this moment until we're back at home?

Straightening my back a little I decide that it doesn't matter and I won't let myself be affected by it anymore. I was having a good day before and I really don't want that to be ruined over some young seamstress who probably has a crush on Peeta Mellark, Hunger Games victor, but doesn't know the first thing about who he really is.

"Can we stop by the supply shop?" I ask, trying not to sound sullen. "I'm almost out of envelopes and I was planning on writing my mother."

"Sure. Need an envelope per page of the letter, or…?"

His teasing smirk does nothing to improve my mood so I promptly ignore it and walk towards the shop that sells all sorts of everyday supplies, like envelopes and dishrags and napkins.

As we enter the shop I am still sullen and fighting to ignore the pain in my chest while Peeta has his hands in his back pockets and is in such good spirits that he's begun to whistle a tune to himself. I have to bite my tongue to keep from telling him to cut it out and I stride over to the paper section of the store, both pleased that he follows me and irritated that I have to keep listening to his whistle.

"Are you sure the rest of the people here like hearing that tune?" I end up saying anyway as I stop to sort through the various kinds of envelopes they sell.

The whistling stops and I seem to be bringing him back from someplace far away.

"What?"

"You were whistling." After a moment's pause I add: "You never whistle."

He looks thoughtful.

"I don't?" He sighs, the good mood gone. "Well that figures. You have no idea how utterly _confusing_, not to mention _frustrating_, it is to not even remember basic things like that about yourself."

"You remember most of it now though, right?" I say carefully. "You seem more and more like your old self every day…"

"I _feel_ more and more like my old self" he says, reaching out his hand to let his fingers brush the small assortment of paint tubes the store sells. "It sounds corny but I'm starting to feel myself coming back to life. If that makes sense."

"It does."

His fingers trail over the tubes of paint, five in total, each one in a different colour.

"Sometimes I worry though… that I will always be wondering about myself. If a trait or mind-set or behaviour is genuinely _me_ or if it's something I've developed afterward or even something _they_ put in there…"

"People change all the time" I point out in a low voice.

"Not like I changed, they don't." He takes his eyes off the paint tubes and looks at me with such sadness in his eyes that for half a second I long back to the look he had in them before, regardless of the reason behind that look. "You are my touchstone when it comes to who I _am_" he says. "Haymitch too, to a degree, but you knew me best before… Well, before. At least, you knew me better than anyone else who survived."

"You're going to be fine, Peeta" I assure him. "You already _are_ fine. The rest will come back to you, I know it. I think most of it already has come back."

Except the part I come to realize I cherished the most. The part of him that loved me, unconditionally. It's beginning to dawn on me how much it meant to me that someone as inherently good as Peeta thought I was wonderful, but it's more than that. There must be other people out there, other men, with that same kind of goodness, I reason. Yet I wouldn't trade Peeta's love for all of their love combined. I want _him_ to love me. I want him to not look at anybody else the way he looked at that seamstress.

Peeta has turned his attention back to the tubes of paint and he's picking up all five of them. Black, white, red, blue and green. They don't have yellow, the colour he needs to make that painting he promised me. Him buying several tubes of paint is a good sign anyway, a sign that he's finding inspiration to paint again. Under any other circumstances I would have been thrilled but today I can't help but feel worried. Is there some deeper reason for his inspiration or is it all just a coincidence? For all I know it could be the first signs of spring that brought it on, or he might even _be_ particularly inspired. It could be that he's just stocking up so he'll have what he needs at home when inspiration does strike.

I turn my face away, trying to focus on the envelopes. They sell packages of three, or just separate envelopes if that's what you need. They come in three different sizes. I decide on the middle-sized one so I can write a long letter to my mother and not have to jam too much into one envelope. I haven't written her in a while and I know I ought to keep in touch. It just hasn't seemed like all that much has been happening in my life, especially in comparison to the number of life-changing things that happened the two previous years.

"Hand me one of the small ones, will you?" asks Peeta.

"Okay" I mutter, doing as he asks.

"I'm going to write Effie when I get home."

It takes everything I've got for me not to turn on my heel and storm off to a different section of the shop. So he's really going to do it? He's really going to write Effie and ask her to send him a book? I want to tell myself it's just an innocent gesture of friendship but I'm not that naïve.

I stay mostly silent while we walk back home. Peeta seems lost in thoughts the whole way but there's a smile on his lips again and I have a gnarling suspicion that his mind is in a much happier place than my own.

* * *

That evening I sit by the fireplace alone, save for Buttercup who has fallen asleep on my lap. I'm in an armchair, my back against one armrest and my legs draped over the other, stroking the cat absentmindedly while I look into the flickering flames. What a strange day it has been. I feel embarrassed at how I overreacted earlier and grateful that Peeta thought it was the memories of Cinna and Portia that made me behave like that. I guess it stings a bit that he can't read me as well as he once used to but in this case it provided me with some protection and I didn't have to make a fool of myself.

What occupies my mind the most tonight is the realization of how often I think about him. Peeta seems to be constantly on my mind and it's been like that for a while now but it happened so gradually that I never even realized it. Not until today, when each time I thought about him I've also thought about that _look_. I miss having him look at me that way. I selfishly feel that I want him to look _only_ at me with those eyes. I can't help but wonder if there is a way that I could make that happen again.

I think about the night he let me sleep in his arms. I think of the few, precious moments when we've stood close to one another and his eyes have met with mine and I've felt something that I cannot believe he wasn't feeling as well. I think about when we were lying in the snow together and I really wanted to kiss him. Next time, if there is a next time, I tell myself that I will actually go for it and press my lips against his. He's not in love with me anymore but I wasn't in love with him at the start either. Perhaps there's a way for me to bring those feelings back. I want to at least try.

There has to be a next time. And it has to be soon. The sense of urgency seems to weigh heavily on me tonight and it's not exactly difficult to guess why. No matter how hard I try not to think about what I witnessed between Peeta and the seamstress that overbearing sadness keeps gripping my heart. Even when my mind is elsewhere that hurt seems to come creeping back over and over and over again. So far all Peeta has done is look at another girl in that way. I'm afraid that if I don't make a move soon he will progress further with his fancy for that girl, or find somebody else, and I will have missed my window of opportunity.

There's no denying it, I realize as I sit there stroking Buttercup's back. I am not indifferent towards Peeta, nor do I view him as just a friend. I care about him, deeply, in a way I haven't cared about anybody else before. I'm not one hundred percent sure it's love but it's got to be something close to that, or at the very least a stepping stone towards reaching that place. It's my regular bad luck that I don't come to realize this until it's too late and he has gotten over me.

If only I could get him to see me again, like the way he used to see me. There has to be a way to make him do that. I just don't know how. I've never been good at these kinds of things and I've never had to pursue a boy before. It's especially difficult because it is Peeta and because of the fragility of our friendship. As much as I like to believe that we are strongly bound together in friendship for eternity I know that things like that are never certain, my friendship with Gale proved that without a doubt, and it was only a year ago that Peeta detested me and wanted me dead. If I let him know how I feel about him and he doesn't feel comfortable with that then we might drift apart. I might lose him all over again.

I close my eyes for a moment and all I can see is Peeta looking at that girl and her beaming smile in response. I remember how I felt like an outsider, watching two people share an exclusive connection. And the hurt comes back, full force, and I can feel the tears burning hot behind my eyelids.

So this is jealousy? A broken heart? This is something I've subjected both Peeta and Gale to, albeit without having any grasp of what it actually feels like at the time? Logically I assume I should feel terrible for causing two people I care about to feel that way but right here, right now all I can manage to do is feel sorry for myself. I allow myself to wallow in this emotion for a while but it gets too strong, too intense, and I take a deep breath through my nose and try my best to clear my mind. I can't let myself get this upset or I might slip back into the pits of depression. Especially when I don't know for sure that there's anything to be upset about.

If only there was somebody I could talk to about all this. There is no one left. Prim is dead and gone and I can't even bear to think of her right now. My mother is far away in another district and this isn't a conversation I want to have over the phone. I used to be able to talk to Gale about anything but even if our friendship had managed to survive I couldn't be so cold-hearted as to discuss this with him. Hazelle has not returned to the district, and even if she had it would feel wrong to talk to her as well. Finnick is probably the one who would understand my feelings the most but he's dead too. So who does that leave? Greasy Sae? Not a chance. Haymitch? Completely out of the question.

Peeta – obviously not.

Tears begin to fall down my cheeks as I acknowledge once more how painfully alone I am. I don't even know if I have Peeta the way I thought I did when I woke up this morning. If he's off flirting with other girls, looking at them _like that_, then who's to say that he will be interested in a close friendship with me? Perhaps all I am to him now is an extended family that replaces the one he lost.

A sister.

I think I would rather have him hate me.

* * *

Originally the seamstress had a different first name but I decided quite late to change it into something that felt more District 8 appropriate. That's why her last name is Bomull (Cotton in Swedish), a name I gave her mostly just because it entertained me.

Anyways, I'm off on vacation and won't be going online much for a couple of weeks. Hope I'll see you all again when I get back, and that you're having a great summer!

Thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

I've been getting a lot of requests to reveal whether or not this story is going to end with Everlark as endgame. I'm afraid you're going to have to wait and see. I usually outline my stories before I begin to write them but I want the option to change things as I go along, so while I have a specific ending in mind I don't want to paint myself into a corner by giving it away. It has happened in the past that I've scrapped my original intended ending for a story and gone in a different direction.

If you enjoy an angsty story so long as it has a happy ending, or if you simply don't care to read a Katniss/Peeta story that might not end up with them together, I won't blame you if you decide not to continue reading. That said, I'm grateful for any feedback I get and I'm very happy that people are sticking with the story even though there hasn't been any real happy K/P moments at this point. All you lovely readers make my day and inspire me to keep writing!

* * *

I don't see Peeta again for three days. We were supposed to have dinner the day after our trip to town together but winter came with one more attempt to keep the hold on the district, and it ended up snowing too heavily. I fervently wish we hadn't missed that evening together because by the time our next dinner comes along I've become so nervous at the thought of seeing him again that my heart is pounding in my chest when I walk the short distance from my house to his. I don't know how to act around him now. I don't know if he will act differently around me. My whole world seems like it's been turned on its head but for Peeta nothing might have changed at all. That thought is almost more depressing than anything else.

I walk with heavy steps through the snow, which this time I didn't bother to shovel. It's probably just going to melt soon anyway. It's become warmer again now that the snow has stopped falling and it makes the snow on the ground wet and heavy and it puts me in a really bad mood. I walk up the three steps to Peeta's door, pause to stomp the worst of the snow off my boots and then I draw a deep breath. Have I ever needed to gather courage this way before knocking on Peeta's door? Have I ever dreaded seeing him like I do now, yet at the same time longed to see him?

"Have you forgotten how to open doors, sweetheart?" says Haymitch behind me in a dry voice.

I startle a bit. I didn't hear him come up behind me.

"Thought I'd wait for you to catch up" I reply, somehow finding my bearings right away. "You're getting slower by the hour, old man."

He doesn't bother to reply. Instead he walks up the steps, shoves me aside and throws the door open, hollering to Peeta that we've arrived. I follow in his heels, grateful that my first moment with Peeta since we went into town won't be a private meeting and for once finding some relief in Haymitch's rather uncouth style.

He throws himself down on the small backless couch by the hallway mirror and reaches down to untie the laces on his boots. I remove my scarf and jacket and look over at the coat rack where the blue coat is still hanging. I don't like the sight of it anymore. I stuff my scarf down the sleeve of my jacket and hang it on top of the coat, covering it from my line of sight. Peeta comes walking in just as I lean down to undo my boots.

"Hey you two" he says, crossing his arms over his chest casually and leaning against the doorpost. He doesn't look entirely pleased to see us. "From what I can tell Katniss brought nothing and Haymitch brought nothing also. May I remind you both that I paid for dinner last time?"

"It's Katniss' turn" says Haymitch and grabs a long shoehorn which he proceeds to poke me with. "Hey! Run back home and fetch food."

"My turn was the day before yesterday" I protest. "Today is your day."

"Oh no you don't! Just because your day got snowed in-"

"Oh great" sighs Peeta, rolling his eyes. "Whatever happened to wanting to contribute your share? I don't have anything at home that we can cook and I don't really think it should be my responsibility by default."

"Well maybe if you spent less money on your vanity you would be able to feed us twice in one week" I retort sullenly, feeling embarrassed that I forgot it was my turn to bring the ingredients for dinner.

"What is that supposed to mean?" asks Peeta, his brow furrowing.

"Peeta spends all his money on fashion these days" I say to Haymitch, in a way that makes it sound a lot shallower than I know it is.

"What's your problem?" asks Peeta in an annoyed tone.

"Ah, shut up both of you" says Haymitch, finally getting both boots off and rising from his seat. "You," he says, pointing at me with the shoehorn, "try to keep track of when it's your turn to put food on the table." He turns to Peeta, pointing the shoehorn at him. "And you, don't you have leftovers or something?"

Peeta looks like he wants to say something to me and judging by the look on his face it's not something I'd care to hear. I worry that I've picked a fight when that wasn't my intention and there's a strange, uncomfortable feeling in my chest at knowing that he's irritated with me. Instead of saying something though he snorts and shakes his head, turning on his heel to march to the kitchen.

"I have oatmeal" he says. "That will suffice. Neither one of you deserves better tonight."

"What did _I_ do?" asks Haymitch. "It's Katniss who forgot to bring dinner _and_ who called you vain."

I glare at his back as he goes into the kitchen. Trust Haymitch to hammer it home further. I can easily think of at least a dozen sharp comebacks but I hold my tongue, knowing that I won't make the situation any better by adding further fuel to the fire.

Once my boots are off I follow the guys into the kitchen where Peeta is pouring oatmeal into a pot. He turns on the faucet and adds water, finishing off by adding a dab of salt. It's a little bit fascinating to me, the fact that he doesn't use any form of measurements to make sure he's got the right balance of oatmeal and water. When he bakes he sometimes uses what seems like millimetre precision. He once explained to me that cooking is art and baking is science, though that made no sense to me. The thought of it, however, brings to mind something else.

"I guess the bad weather gave you ample opportunity to use those tubes of paint you bought" I say, trying to keep my voice casual. I'm hoping that if I play it that way he won't put too much weight into my previous demeanour and we can avoid having the evening be a disaster. The last thing I wanted for tonight, for any night, was for us to be at odds with one another.

"Yeah, I guess" he says, not sounding too exalted. He uses a wooden spoon to stir the pot and twists a knob to change the stove's temperature. "I started on something when we got home from town the other day but I am sick and tired of the snow falling down so heavily. It kind of killed what inspiration I had, honestly."

"Oh." I can't tell if he's still annoyed with me or if he's annoyed by the bad weather we just had. "I, uh… I noticed that they didn't have yellow paint."

"Doesn't really matter yet" he replies. "Your primroses won't bloom for maybe another two months."

"I'm sorry about what I said before" I say. "Calling you vain. You know I didn't mean it. I'm just… really out of sorts."

"Yeah, don't worry about it…" he says, stirring the pot. He still sounds rather low-spirited. "I wish you'd find something else to pick on, though."

I bite my bottom lip, wishing now that I could have a conversation with him between four eyes but that's not likely to happen today. Haymitch has begun to set the table and I can't think of anything to say to get him to give us a moment, and even if I did I don't want to make too big of a deal out of it to Peeta. Whatever is going on in his life right now I don't want it to bring us farther apart than necessary. I want us to stay close so I can have the chance to show him that I truly care about him, and hopefully make him remember how he used to feel about me.

I don't even know if it's actually possible to _remind_ somebody of their feelings. Can you fall in love with someone again by coming to remember that you had those feelings before? I know so very little about love and how it works. It could very well be that he has to fall in love with me all over again for him to ever feel that way about me now and if that is the case then I'm really out of luck. I don't have the first idea what made him fall for me the first time around and I have a gnawing insecurity that maybe he was more in love with an idea of me. He didn't really seem to have noticed my bad qualities until he was hijacked.

Peeta deems the porridge ready and asks Haymitch to give him the bowls. I search through his refrigerator to find something to spice it up a little but finding nothing that fits except for a little bit of apple sauce that Peeta uses for some of his baked goods. Deeming it better than nothing, even though there will only be a dab for each of us, I grab it from the shelf and bring it to the table.

The rest of the evening passes by uneventfully and rather uncomfortably. Peeta and I don't argue but we aren't exactly comfortable around each other either and the fact that all we're eating is oatmeal porridge does nothing to brighten the spirits. Haymitch chooses not to comment on the damp on the mood even though he obviously picks up on it. The three of us make polite small talk while we eat and then the boys play chess for a while. When Haymitch and I bid Peeta a good night and head to our own homes it's much earlier in the evening than when we usually leave.

I come back to my own house feeling no more at ease than when I left it earlier this evening.

* * *

The back door to my house is wide open, letting fresh spring air flow into the house and make the whole place seem nicer and almost rejuvenated. This is the time of year when my mother would usually do a big spring cleaning of the house from top to bottom. The rugs would be taken outside and weathered, the floorboards would be scrubbed diligently, the windows cleaned, every possible surface dusted, pillows and comforters washed and the end result would be a home feeling infinitely fresher. Even our old Seam house felt pleasant and homely and clean when as much coal dust as possible had been brushed, scrubbed or pounded out. The first three years after my father's death my mother didn't bother with the spring cleaning but the fourth year I took it into my own hands. I spent so much time on my knees on the floor, scrubbing it vigorously, that my knees became blistered and scraped. Prim wanted to help out and she did as much as she could but she was only ten years old and thin and lacking in both height and muscle so she could do very little to help me with the heavy things. She dusted though, and took to the task with gusto and energy, working on every last item on every shelf and in every cupboard in the house. It took three days for the cleaning to be done and by the last day my mother took active part and together we took care of the heaviest parts of the cleaning.

Last year I didn't do a spring cleaning. I was too weak and wounded from everything I had been through and I didn't really come back to life until Peeta returned to the district, at which point it was late spring and no longer the time I associate with spring cleaning. This year I intend to make up for it. Not so much because the house needs to be dusted – the quality of the house itself and the lack of coal dust makes a huge different from the house I grew up in – but because I want to cling to as many elements of my past life as I can. Dr. Aurelius has told me so many times that routines are good for me and spring cleaning is a routine, even if it only happens once a year. It's something normal that I used to do and the fact that it will take forever to clean this big house all by myself does nothing to discourage me. It has the opposite effect, in fact. I look forward to having a task of physical labour that will take days to do properly and will no doubt distract me from how alone I am in this house and keep me from wallowing in thoughts of the girl who will never come back home.

I've decided to tackle the chore on a room-by-room basis, except for scrubbing the floors, which I'll leave for last. Living here I don't have to be down on my knees with a thick brush and a rag. I have a dust-drawing mop of high quality, as good as any they used to sell in the Capitol, and instead of soap I have a large bottle of multi-surface cleaner that smells of lily of the valley. The house also came equipped with a large collection of cleaning products I had never even heard of or thought a person could have use for. I intend to make use of each and every one before I'm done with my cleaning project.

The one thing I dread having to do is clean the windows. I've always hated that particular chore and this house seems to consist of two dozen windows, most of them fairly big and the ones in the sitting room even being floor-to-ceiling. I'm currently standing looking straight at them, my hands on my hips as I bite my bottom lip and try to devise a strategy for how to get them clean. They're definitely in need of a good cleaning. When we did spring cleaning that year my mother, sister and I all lived here together my mother and I worked as a team to get the job done, one of us standing on a tall stool doing the upper halves and the other doing the bottom. That took long enough, and now that I'm on my own it will take twice that time. It is one distraction I'm not welcoming.

I'm side-tracked from my attempts to come up with a plan of attack when there's a knock on the door. I turn to go and answer it, giving the windows one last glance over my shoulder, sighing as I leave them behind for now. Perhaps I can find somebody in town who wants to make a bit of money cleaning the stupid windows for me.

I open the door and my spirits rise at once when I see Peeta standing there. He's wearing a pair of old jeans and a green t-shirt, a light jacket Portia made for him flung over his left shoulder. Nothing made by the town seamstress, I'm relieved to note. I'm surprised to see him. He rarely comes knocking on my door unexpectedly. He's not giving me the carefree smile I enjoy so much but I suppose beggars can't be choosers. I offer him a hesitant smile and say his name in greeting.

"Hey Katniss" he replies. "Am I interrupting?"

"No" I say, shaking my head. The cross-breeze from having both the back and front door wide open causes the door to the kitchen to slam shut, making both of us jump. We both laugh a little at how we startled and the tension that seemed to be there a moment ago begins to fade. "Just letting some air into the house."

"A little too much air, maybe" says Peeta with a crooked smile.

"What brings you by?" I ask.

"I was heading out for a walk" he says, gesturing towards the road with a nod of his head. "I was wondering if you'd like to join me."

"Sure!" I say, all thoughts of cleaning the house cast aside. "Just let me, uh, just let me go close the back door. I don't want to come home and find a flock of geese eating my mother's orchids. They're the only indoor flowers I seem to manage keeping alive."

Peeta chuckles a bit and walks the three steps down from the front porch.

"Go close the door. I'll wait here."

I nod and eagerly head back inside the house, closing and locking the front door. I hurry through the kitchen to the sitting room, noticing that the cross-breeze made a vase tip over on the coffee table but choosing to ignore it. What does it matter, really, when I'm going to clean the whole house later anyway? I leave the house through the back door and close it behind me, not bothering to lock it.

I go around the house, grateful that I decided to wear a long-sleeved shirt when I feel a gush of the not exactly warm winds that are blowing today, but even with the shirt it's a bit cold. I ought to have taken my jacket. The sun is warm in the sky but when you step into the shade it's significantly colder and even in the sunlight the winds keep you from getting hot. When I round the corner of the house I spot Peeta standing on the road, his hands in his back pockets, eyes squinting at the sky, and suddenly I feel a lot warmer. My eyes follow the direction he's looking in and I spot a flock of birds returning from winter.

"So where do you want to go?" I ask him, getting his attention.

"Oh, nowhere in particular" he says, blinking a bit as if the sun blinded him a little. "I just thought it would be nice to… well, walk."

"The ground is drying up but it's still a better bet to stick with the roads" I say as I reach him. "We could walk in to town and back."

"I'd rather not walk to town today" he says. "Isn't there a road around here somewhere? Or a dirt path or something?"

"More like mud path at this time of year. But there is a small road that leads from the edge of the Victor's Village to the old abandoned entrance to the mines. Effie told us they used it to transport building material for the houses here."

"Yeah, I remember that" he nods. "Okay, let's take that road, then."

While he seems to recall the history lesson Effie graciously bestowed upon us when we first arrived to live in this part of the district it's clear he doesn't know where the road in question actually is, so he gestures for me to lead the way. We walk in silence past the row of houses until we reach the small road and I try my best to think of something to say to fill the silence with. I don't like the fact that it's an uncomfortable silence between us and I'm not even sure why Peeta wanted me to join him if he's not going to say anything to me. We walk down the road for about five minutes and I begin to look around me in a slightly desperate attempt at finding _something_ to talk about. Unfortunately for me this part of the road offers little more view than ditches with smelly, mud-mixed water and plants that haven't come back to life after the long winter.

"So…" I say, hoping that something will come to me.

"Katniss I…" Peeta begins, sounding hesitant.

I look at him and am saddened by the troubled look on his face. I hate that I can't read him like I want to be able to read him and I hate that we seem to have drifted apart these last few weeks. Perhaps I shouldn't try to force it and just let things work by themselves but I'm a little paranoid that I might lose Peeta just like I've lost so many other people I care about and it makes me want to grab on all the more hard when taking a step back and allowing things to develop naturally is in all likelihood the wisest choice.

"Katniss are you mad at me about something?" He looks at me, his eyes almost as blue as the sky above us, and there's so much insecurity and sadness in them that I want to close my own eyes so I don't have to see it. "Did I do something to upset you?"

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"I don't think I've had a bad episode and blacked out about it," he goes on, "but I suppose it could be possible that I did, and I'm scared that if that is the case I did something to hurt you."

"No, you haven't had an episode around me in a month or so" I tell him. "And that one wasn't bad. I mean, not like before, during the war. Just you holding on to the back of a chair and… Well, point is you haven't hurt me during an episode."

"Then what?" he asks. "Is there something else that I have done?"

"Peeta I don't even know what you are talking about" I say, baffled at hearing him ask the question.

"You've been acting like you're cross with me" he says. "Snide remarks, scowls, sullen silences… Just towards me, not towards Haymitch. I don't know what I did to bring that about but whatever it is I'm sorry."

When I hear him describe my recent behaviour and I see how much it's been upsetting him I feel absolutely terrible. Guilt flows through me and I can't believe I have hurt him when what I really wanted to do is make him feel as good in my company as I do in his. I take his hand in mine, giving it a reassuring squeeze, and the hint of a smile comes over his face, though not enough to cancel out the sadness in his eyes.

"You haven't done anything to me" I assure him. "I'm not mad at you. God, I feel terrible that I've made you think that. It's just…" He looks at me expectantly now, his eyebrows raised a bit, and I try to muster my courage. This could be the chance I've waited for. Perhaps I could tell him, right here and right now, how I feel about him and why it's affected my behaviour towards him negatively. Then I see before me how he looked at that seamstress and I feel my courage deflate. I turn my face away and come up with a lie to cover the truth I'm not brave enough to admit. "It's been really difficult for me lately. So many things this time of year remind me of Prim. It's been a whole year without her and…" The thought of my loss brings real tears to my eyes. I'm trying to give him an excuse that isn't the true one but this explanation is not a lie, not really. I miss Prim so much I can barely breathe sometimes. "Whenever I think I've gotten past the worst of it something happens that makes me think of her and the pain comes flooding back." With the hand that's not holding Peeta's I wipe away the few teardrops that have fallen down my cheeks. "I don't know why I've been taking it out on you but I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I honestly don't know why I've treated you this way recently…" I can't help but wallow in self-pity. "I'm a miserable, horrible person and you don't deserve all of my crap."

"Katniss it's alright" he replies, voice full of caring and compassion. It makes me have to fight with all my might not to have more tears come. "I'm sorry, I should have realized… I just needed to be sure that it's not about something _I_ did."

I take a deep breath, getting my emotions under control, and look into his eyes.

"You do plenty" I tell him. "In a good way. Which is why I don't know why I take my sadness out on you."

He smiles crookedly, still looking sad but now sad for me and not for himself. At least not entirely.

"It's only human to react that way" he says. "It doesn't make you a bad person. You don't have to bottle it all up inside, though, you know? How about instead of scowling at me you talk to me?"

"I would like that" I say with a faint smile. I really do feel I want to open up to him about the grief over my sister but I'm feeling a little confused right now since the thing he's offering to listen to me talking about is not the real reason why I've been treating him coldly the last few weeks.

"Good" he says. "It's been killing me trying to figure out what's been wrong between you and me lately." He stops and I stop with him, meeting his very serious gaze. "I need for everything to be alright between us. You're all I've got. You and Haymitch. It feels like you've been pushing me away and you don't know how nervous that made me."

My heart flutters inside my chest and I'm at once jubilant at hearing him say he needs me and ashamed that I've made him feel insecure.

"I'm sorry."

"I ought to tell you not to worry about it" he says. "Dealing with the loss of your sister is, is something I cannot even begin to comprehend the… What I mean is, I don't want to fault you for acting out when you're going through that much pain. We're friends, and friends should be understanding of things like that. I need you to understand though that I've lost too many people and things that matter and I'm scared of losing even more. You and I, we need each other, I think. I need you." He swallows hard and looks away for a few seconds before he continues. "I'm afraid of losing you."

"Peeta…" His name comes out soft, almost like a caress. I wrap my arms around him and pull him close to me, my heart swelling when he wraps his arms around me in return. "I promise you that you will not lose me. We have each other and that's not going to change. I'm so sorry I made you feel like you did something wrong." Wrapped in an embrace with him, unable to see his face, I find the courage to reveal a small piece of my heart to him. "Remember that night you let me sleep in your guest room, when I was crying over Prim? That is probably the safest I have felt in… I don't even know how long. No nightmares. I need you. Even though oftentimes I am too proud to admit it."

As lovely as the embrace feels I have a strong desire to look into his eyes. I pull back and kiss him right on the corner of his mouth, halfway between a purely chaste peck on the cheek and a real kiss. In that second when my mouth crazes the corner of his I feel a jolt of the same feeling that overtook me on the beach. I'm breathing heavily and I don't know what I'm struggling with more, the fear of kissing him for real when he might reject me or resisting the urge to press my mouth against his.

I pull back a little bit, just enough so that I can look into his eyes. He is smiling at me, gently and full of affection. A wave of pain runs through me when I see that the way he's looking at me is affectionate but it's not the look I'm dying to see. I pull back from him and hark my throat, looking down at the ground while I try to form a coherent thought and figure out what I'm supposed to do next to avoid things becoming awkward only a few minutes after we progressed past the earlier awkwardness.

"I'm glad to hear it" Peeta says, surprising me by laughing slightly and seeming completely unfazed. "Not the part about you being too proud. That other part."

He gives me a playful nudge and then starts walking again, me following beside him. We walk silently together for a few minutes but this time it's the kind of comfortable silence we used to have. Peeta seems relaxed now, and relieved. I, on the other hand, feel anything but relaxed. We just had a conversation that felt deep and meaningful, at least to me, and then we embraced, I kissed him almost on his mouth and we looked into each other's eyes. As lovely as it was there was an important component missing and there's a part of me that feels relieved that he didn't pick up on it.

"Are you having more frequent nightmares now?" he asks after a few minutes.

"What?" I say, drawn from my confused thoughts.

"You mentioned nightmares" he says. "I get them too, a lot. So does Haymitch. I assume that goes for all victors, the few of us that are left." The last part is said with a bitterness that doesn't match the concern in the rest of what he's saying. "Since you're being hit pretty hard right now with grieving for Prim… Are you getting enough proper sleep? Or are you being plagued by nightmares every night?"

He sounds concerned but also like he's trying to figure something out. Perhaps he thinks that it's sleep-deprivation that has made me act so coldly towards him. I open my mouth to tell him that I'm plagued by nightmares several nights a week and have been ever since our first arena, but I close my mouth again. I don't want to sound like I'm whining or full of self-pity. I don't want him to have to worry about me.

"It's nothing" I say. "Everybody has nightmares from time to time."

"Yeah, well there's nightmares and there's the kind of nightmares you get from being in the Hunger Games, a war and losing your favourite person in the world."

I draw a deep, shaking breath and look away. It's painful to hear him phase it like that. Not only does it remind me of the tremendous thing I've lost but it makes me scared that I might lose him, too. Out of all the people alive in the world today there is nobody I like better than him.

"Katniss?"

"Yeah" I say in an exhale. "I have bad nightmares. They will pass."

"Dr. Aurelius says accepting help from others is an important step." He smiles a little. "I want to help you. If you can allow it."

"Of course I can allow it" I say, though wondering to myself if there is anything he can truly do to help me except return my feelings for him.

"If you've had a really bad night you're welcome to come over and take a nap or something at my place. If having other people around helps, I mean…"

"Thank you, but I don't want to start sleeping during the day and being awake during the nights" I say, deeply disappointed that he's offering me a place to nap and not his presence to comfort me during the nights.

"Well the offer stands if you should change your mind."

"It's nice of you, Peeta, but…" I sigh heavily. "I've dealt with nightmares ever since my father died. They got worse after the Hunger Games and even worse after everything that happened after that. You know, the only time in these past couple of years that I remember sleeping soundly was… was during the Victory Tour."

"I don't really remember that part of my life very clearly" admits Peeta, sounding a touch sheepish. "Did they give you something to help you sleep?"

"Nothing that helped. In fact the pills Effie gave me only made things worse."

"I don't remember anything about any pills… The majority of the Tour is still a blur. What they did leave is not exactly pleasant."

I decide I might as well take a leap and lead Peeta all the way to the end of the line I've begun to tread. I take a deep breath to gather my courage and I try to sound as casual as possible, as if what I'm saying only just occurred to me and hasn't been on my mind every night since Peeta came back to the district.

"You heard me scream in my sleep one night on the Tour, when you were unable to sleep and wandering the halls. You came and woke me up. Then you stayed with me… Every night for the remainder of the Tour you came to bed with me and we… we helped ward off each other's nightly terrors as best we could."

I let my words sink in for a minute, curious to see how he will react to them.

"It sounds nice" he says after a minute. "I can see why they blocked that memory."

"It was nice. It was one of the few things in my life that were nice at that point."

He gives me a crooked smile.

"Well if you ever have a truly terrible night, come knock on my door."

I give him a crooked smile in return, nervously hoping that he genuinely means it and isn't just trying to be nice, or that it's some weird form of playful banter.

"I just might take you up on that" I say.

"You should."

We smile at each other, another silence falling between us, this one even more comfortable than the previous one. Then Peeta breaks the gaze and changes the subject entirely, filling me in on the talk he's heard in town of what they plan to build here in District 12 now that the days of oppression are over. I only listen with half an ear, my mind re-playing the conversation we just had over and over and over again.

I haven't felt this good in weeks.

* * *

The following evening we meet up for dinner and it's much more relaxed and comfortable than it's been since that day in the seamstress' shop. Thankfully Haymitch doesn't comment on how the atmosphere has changed and the three of us carry on like nothing ever happened. I took a break from cleaning and went out hunting earlier in the day and brought home a wild goose for the dinner table. Haymitch and I squabble amicably over who gets to keep the feathers and Peeta chides Haymitch for eating the brethren of his own flock of geese. The original intent when he bought his flock was to breed them to feed us but he has grown strangely fond of the stupid animals and while he still keeps the number to an even ten he doesn't allow us to eat the ones he kills. Instead he sells or trades them in town, seeming to be alright with his pets being eaten so long as he doesn't do the eating himself.

After dinner we relocate to the sitting room and Peeta brings up the subject of the things that are being planned for the district. I didn't pay much attention to it yesterday and I'm not overly interested now either. Most of it sounds ridiculous to my ears but Peeta seems excited and Haymitch appears to think positively of it too.

"Why on earth does District 12 need an ice-cream parlour?" I ask, interrupting Peeta in the middle of an animated description of a new shop that is being built.

"What's wrong with ice-cream?" he asks.

"I don't have anything against ice-cream per se" I reply. "But a whole shop selling only ice-cream? Who's going to shop there? Especially during winter? People have more important things to spend their money on and it's not like anyone wants to eat ice-cream every day. I fail to see how a shop like that will be able to turn a profit."

"I suppose they'll have to branch out when winter comes" shrugs Peeta.

Haymitch snorts.

"If it were up to you, Katniss, I bet the only shop this district would have is a butcher shop."

"That's not true" I object. "What good would the butcher shop do me if I couldn't sell game to them and use that money in the other stores?"

"You don't need to sell anything to get money" replies Haymitch. "We'll all be living comfortably off our winnings until our dying days."

"Which is a good thing, I suppose" I say, glancing out the window. "It was miserable out in the woods today. Wet and smelly… Things like that never used to bother me but I found myself wondering why I was even out there at this time of year when I could go to the aforementioned butcher shop and buy meat there."

"Well if you had we wouldn't have had that delicious goose for dinner" says Peeta, raising an eyebrow in Haymitch's direction. "We could all be starving to death and Haymitch's geese would still live to quack another day."

"Which is why I get to keep the feathers" I say. "It was my kill. You want goose feathers go get them in your own back yard."

"There's talk of a home textile shop opening at the end of summer" says Peeta. He lifts the large tea mug he brought from the kitchen to his lips, taking a careful sip of the steaming hot liquid. "Selling pillows and comforters and tablecloth and things like that."

"They seem to have shops for everything" I mutter. "I don't really like the thought of District 12 turning into a new version of the Capitol."

"I wouldn't worry about that just yet" says Haymitch. He lifts his flask and tips it in my direction. "Besides, there are some Capitol stores that I would be happy to welcome here. Like their liquor stores for instance."

"Perfect" I mutter, rolling my eyes.

"Did you hear about the swimming pool?" asks Peeta.

"The swimming pool?" I echo with disbelief.

"Yeah. They already started building it. They are turning the old rugby field by the school into a swimming area. I heard that they intend to teach all kids to swim as part of the curriculum."

"Where do you get all this information?" asks Haymitch incredulously between the sips from his flask.

"I have my sources" smiles Peeta.

They continue to discuss the pros and cons of having a swimming pool in the district while I rise from my seat and head to the bathroom. While I'm washing my hands I look over at the two towels hanging in Peeta's downstairs bathroom. One for himself and one guest towel. Looking at them brings to mind how my bathroom in the training centre had only one set of towels and Peeta and I would share. It was only for a few nights but there was something nice about it. He used my toothbrush, too, and I remember liking to use it after him. My mind goes to what he said when we were out walking, about me coming to knock on his door if I have a particularly bad nightmare. I imagine getting to spend my nights here, or having him spend them at my place. We could share towels again. We could share a toothbrush. I miss that intimacy.

On the way back to the sitting room I stop in the doorway and lean against the doorpost, observing the two men for a moment before going to join them again. Haymitch is telling a story about his geese and their antics and Peeta laughs. Longing grips my heart, so strong it is almost unbearable. I love the way he smiles. I always have, but it's on a whole new level these days. Whenever I see him smiling widely or laughing I can't think of anything that I find more beautiful. I want so badly to be the one who makes him laugh on a daily, or even hourly basis but I know that's never going to happen. Comedy has never been my forte. I'd settle for being able to make him smile in that special way but I rarely manage to do so anymore. In the early days it seemed to take almost nothing on my part to make him smile like that but it seems I've lost the ability.

Watching the two of them and hearing Peeta's laughter puts a smile on my own face. Right now I very strongly feel that these two are my family and that we share a bond that can never be severed. I know life does not work that way. I know that friendships end, families fall apart and even the most ardent love can die. It's bound to happen with our trio at some point and it's most likely Peeta who's going to leave. Peeta, the one who's genuinely nice and likeable and not a sad, disagreeable mess like Haymitch and me.

But tonight he's still here and a part of our screwed-up family. He's just a few short feet away from me, laughing at Haymitch's story, carefree and relaxed and at home. To me, this company will always be the place where he belongs. Once he is gone there's no telling how far deep into the darkness Haymitch and I will sink. I think Haymitch needs Peeta almost as much as I do, though in an entirely different way. I can't bring joy and hope to Haymitch's life. There's too much darkness and raging fire inside of me for that. He needs Peeta's warmth and softness like a lifeline, just like I do.

I allow myself to imagine what it could be like if Peeta's feelings for me returned. Him and me together, the way it feels like it should be, and Haymitch being the most important person to us outside of each other. I imagine meeting for dinner not at Peeta's house but at Peeta's and mine. The two of us welcoming Haymitch together and bidding him goodnight later in the evening. Retreating upstairs to go to bed, curled up in each other's arms, guarding each other from the terrors of the night.

The fantasy is almost too good for me to indulge in. I will only end in pain when the evening draws to an end and I have to face reality and go back home to an empty house. Just thinking about it makes my heart sink to the soles of my shoes and I turn my face away, closing my eyes hard to try and push back the drowning feeling.

When I open my eyes Peeta is looking at me, his brow furrowed. He gets up from his seat and walks over to me, placing a hand on my arm.

"You okay?" he asks.

I can't bring myself to lie to him but I also can't tell him the whole truth.

"It's just… I like it when we're here, having dinner. What I don't like is having to go home to an empty house. I just started thinking about it and…"

Peeta's hand moves, his arm wraps over my shoulders and his hand now squeezes my right upper arm.

"Why don't you stay here tonight, then?"

"I don't want to be a bother."

"Don't be silly. Stay here."

Warmth spreads through my body and I want to bury my face against his chest and wrap my arms around him. Peeta's hand leaves me before I get a chance to move and the next thing I know he's walking back to Haymitch. The two continue their previous conversation as if what just happened was just a parenthesis and I don't know if I'm happy or disappointed. I do know, however, that I'm relieved. I won't have to go back to my lonely house tonight. I get to stay here. With Peeta.

Haymitch leaves about an hour later and I follow Peeta as he shows me to the downstairs bedroom. He makes small talk while he unmakes the bed but I say very little, saddened that he's putting me in the guestroom and obviously have no intention of climbing into bed with me. He does, however, offer me one of his pyjamas to sleep in and I take him up on it. It's not a shared toothbrush or towel but it will do.

I crawl into bed that night knowing that I'm not alone in the house, that Peeta is nearby even if he's not in the same room as me and that I could wake him up if I have a terrible nightmare. But going to bed alone downstairs is like a mockery to the fantasy I indulged in earlier. The only real bright side is that the pyjamas smells of Peeta and I get to have that scent in my nose when I go to sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

"The two of you are going to have to have dinner by yourselves next time around."

Haymitch and I both stop what we were doing – Haymitch rolling a tumbler back and forth between his hands and me putting plates and glasses back into the cupboard. Both of us stare at Peeta with wide eyes. Since we started having these every-other-night dinners we've only missed out on them when the weather has been too bad. We're all becoming creatures of habit, dr. Aurelius insists that routines are good for us, and hearing Peeta announce a deviation from the routine makes both Haymitch and I uncomfortable.

"Why?" asks Haymitch after a moment of silence.

"Because I have other plans" says Peeta a bit too lightly, probably attempting to sound casual but failing.

"You have other plans?" questions Haymitch.

"Uh-huh."

"Might I ask what those other plans are?"

Peeta pauses for a moment. A smile appears on his face and it seems like he's been trying to hold that smile back for a while. His cheeks turn a light shade of red and I try to remember if I've ever seen him blush before.

"I'm having dinner with somebody else."

My heart sinks to the soles of my shoes and I immediately avert my eyes, busying myself with the plates and glasses. I have a pretty good feeling what he's actually trying to tell us but I vehemently wish not to have to hear it.

"Okay" I manage to say, trying my best to sound like I could care less. "Speaking of dinner, I've decided to start bringing game to the table again. The woods are starting to dry up after the melted snow, the animals are getting fatter and quite frankly I could use the practice after a long winter of hardly ever shooting anything."

"Got a dinner date, boy?" asks Haymitch, completely ignoring my attempt to steer the conversation in a different direction.

"It's a dinner date, yes" says Peeta, still with that small smile on his face.

"Okay, well go have dinner with someone else, then" says Haymitch with a shrug. He rises from his seat at the kitchen table and heads for the sitting room. "It's my turn to provide the food next time anyway."

"I'm sure I won't be missed" says Peeta with a light chuckle. "We're actually going to a restaurant. It's going to be a bit weird but at the same time fun to try it out."

"Uh-huh. Can we still come here and make dinner? Your place smells less than mine or Katniss'."

"Stay away from my house when I'm not here."

Peeta follows Haymitch to the other room while I remain in the kitchen. I take my time putting everything back in the cupboards, grateful to have a few moments to myself so that I can put on my mask of indifference. Peeta is going on a dinner date. At a restaurant. Peeta is actually _dating_ someone, or will be in two days.

I press my lips together, forcing back the tears that burn in my eyes and the sob that threatens to escape my lips. I had almost begun to forget how badly this situation makes me feel. In the weeks that have passed since I first saw Peeta looking at the seamstress I have almost been able to convince myself that I was imagining it, or making a mountain out of a molehill. Peeta hasn't so much as mentioned her to me since that day and there has been no indication that something might be going on between him and some other girl. I gladly chalked it up to me having read the situation wrong before but I'm beginning to realize that there is a significant portion of his life that Peeta doesn't share with me. That realization ought to hurt but right now it can't compare to the jealousy that burns so painfully in my chest.

I know I can't stay in the kitchen forever. I can hear Peeta's and Haymitch's voices from the other room. I should go and join them. If I don't they will start to wonder where I am. All I can do is pray that my face won't betray how devastated I feel.

Slowly, and with a reluctant sigh, I close the door to the kitchen cabinet. I walk from the kitchen to the sitting room, doing my best to seem casual. Haymitch is sitting on the couch and Peeta is in an armchair, his feet pulled up underneath him, his face lit up by a smile as he excitedly gives Haymitch more details about his date.

"… When she smiles she's absolutely lovely" he says. "Her laughter, though, is even better. It's this really contagious, bubbly kind of laughter, you know?"

"Uh-huh" says Haymitch, listening politely but not seeming as excited as Peeta. "So you're going to buy her dinner and tell her jokes all evening?"

"Pretty much" smiles Peeta. "I love being the reason she laughs."

"Comedy was never your strong suit" says Haymitch. He looks over at me. "Both of you, completely lacking of the ability to tell a joke. I'd say you've got your work cut out for you, boy."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence" says Peeta good-naturedly.

"So who is this girl you want to make laugh?" I force myself to ask, taking a seat on the armrest of the couch. As much as it hurts to hear about it I want to know what girl he's got his sights set on. I strongly suspect it's the seamstress but I could be wrong. I'm not sure whether it's better or worse if he's interested in more than one girl. More than one implies that there's nobody in particular and he's just being a typical hormonal eighteen year-old. On the other hand it also means he's interested in several girls yet not in me.

"Her name is Lace" says Peeta, confirming my suspicions. "You've met her, actually."

"Oh?" Somehow I manage to keep my voice steady. "Where?"

"She's a seamstress, the one who's been making clothes for me."

"Oh." I shrug my shoulder and hope to find the right balance in tone so that I sound neither jealous nor mean. "She must not have been laughing at the time because I can't remember a thing about her." Except of course that she _was_ laughing, and that her laughter sounded _pearly_ to me, rather than _bubbly_.

"Which one of the restaurants did you have in mind?" asks Haymitch, leaning back on the couch and putting his right foot over his left knee. "I hear the seafood one is utter crap. Shockingly, shellfish and dead fish don't hold up all that well when you take four days to get it here from the fishing district."

"I heard" nods Peeta. "Thom had dinner there a couple of weeks ago and ended up with food poisoning. They're going to have to find some better way of preserving the fish or they'll be closed by Midsummer."

With that the conversation thankfully turns to a discussion of the three restaurants in town and whether or not any of them has the potential to stay open for very long. Folks in the districts aren't used to the idea of being able to go out and sit down at a table and have food served. The Capitol had countless restaurants but the closest we ever got in District 12 was the soup Greasy Sae sold at the Hob. I suspect very few people will frequent these establishments since at this point most of the district's citizens are focusing on re-building their homes, putting food on the table each day and, at least some, starting up their own businesses. Spending enough money to feed you and your family for at least a few days on just one meal is luxury few will be interested in.

For the rest of the evening we stay on safe topics, making no further mentioning of Peeta's upcoming date. That doesn't mean it's ever far from my mind. Every time he smiles I wonder if the date is the real reason why. For once I long to go back to my own house where I don't have to fight to hide the horrible pain in my chest but I force myself to stay until Haymitch declares that it's time to leave.

We haven't gotten off Peeta's front porch before he brings up the topic I've been glad to avoid all evening.

"I should've figured there was a girl involved" he smirks. I don't reply, unsure of how to react, but unfortunately for me Haymitch doesn't seem to need me much for this conversation. "He went from being rather down in the dumps to being… well, more like his old self, and it happened fairly fast."

"That could be attributed to anything" I argue.

"Well in this case it's attributed to a girl. Though I admit I am a bit surprised."

"Why is that?"

"He was a romantic one-track-mind for most of his life up until the hijacking" says Haymitch with a shrug. "I guess I wasn't expecting him to get the googly eyes for some other woman quite so soon."

I get that sinking feeling in my chest again and I wonder how I will be able to get some help with my predicament from Haymitch without him figuring out what's really going on. He knows Peeta better than anyone else, perhaps even better than I do, and if I can get his truthful, objective thoughts on what is going on with Peeta and this girl then I might have a better understanding of what I am up against.

Every instinct I have is telling me to fight to win back the heart of the boy I care for so deeply. Every instinct save for one. My instinct to protect myself is screaming at me to not enter a fight like this unless I know I stand at least some fraction of a chance at winning. I have suffered far too many losses as it is. If I fight for Peeta and he rejects me I will not only lose the chance of being loved by him again but I will also lose his friendship and companionship and consequently lose the only real family unit I have left. The thought of that happening is far too frightening to even consider. I need Haymitch to help me figure out whether or not I still stand a chance at winning Peeta's heart but I have to get it without my old mentor figuring out what I'm really feeling.

"Do you think it's good for him?" I blurt out as we walk slowly towards our own houses. "Pursuing a relationship so soon, I mean? Like you said he was in love with me for a long time and they jumbled his brain up pretty good."

"Could be exactly what he needs to get back on track again" argues Haymitch.

"Or it could be what throws him off the rails completely" I retort. I wrap my arms around myself and force myself to sound casual and make Haymitch believe what I say next. "He's going to start dating girls eventually but I worry it will only hurt him to rush into something too fast. Routines are important, you know how adamant Dr. Aurelius is about that. I don't like that he's breaking our dinner routine. Furthermore we know nothing about this girl and having his heart broken or having someone take advantage of him could be… Well it could be devastating for him at this point."

"Obviously this is a great concern of yours" says Haymitch, eyeing me carefully. "It's just a date, sweetheart. I trust the boy to know what tempo he can handle. I'm just grateful that someone has been able to make him more like his old self."

I allow myself the luxury of closing my eyes hard for just a second. Someone is able to make him more like his old self and that someone is not me. I hate that. I hate that so much that words can't describe it. For the moment though I have to hide my true feelings on the matter.

"I suppose you're right, Haymitch" I say. "Time will tell."

"You should be glad, you know" says Haymitch, giving my shoulder a pat before he heads down the path to his front door.

"Why is that?" I ask, stopping to make sure he gets through the door, the way I always do on our walks home from Peeta.

"The boy's got his eye on some new girl. That's what you wanted, right? For the whole romance thing to be taken out of the equation. His feelings for you aren't going to be a problem anymore by the looks of it."

He gives me a wave and goes inside his house. The door closes behind him and the lights come on inside. Through the window I can see Haymitch taking off his outdoor clothes before he stumbles off, in all likelihood in pursuit of alcohol.

Somehow I manage to keep my mind blank while I walk the remaining distance to my own house and head inside. Once the door has closed behind me I close my eyes hard and breathe heavily, trying my best not to let the tears begin to fall.

It's not lost on me, the irony of Haymitch's words. He must think that Peeta's affections for me were such an annoyance and that it kept me from fully accepting his friendship. With Peeta's affections turned elsewhere the problem should be gone. Little does he know that the true nature of Peeta's feelings for me is a bigger problem now than it's ever been before.

* * *

It's Saturday evening. I'm sitting in one of the bay windows, a deck of cards in my hands and a ceramic bowl a foot away from my toes. One by one I flick the cards at the bowl, about one in three actually landing where I mean for it to. The grandfather clock by the bookshelf is ticking steadily, almost tauntingly, as if to hammer the point home that I am all by myself with nothing better to do than flick cards at a bowl.

There are a dozen things I could be doing. It's been a beautiful sunny day, perfect for going out into the woods. It's Saturday night and no doubt dozens of programs I could watch on the TV. I have books on the shelf that I haven't read, there's a large pile of laundry that needs to be done and I'm in dire need of some new arrows. I just can't muster the energy or the desire to do any of those things.

Peeta's date was last night. It's all I've been able to think about. Even when I try to distract myself, try telling myself that I don't care and I'm not heartsick and I'm just vexed that I had to eat dinner with Haymitch alone last night, nothing seems to work. All it takes is five minutes and that horrible ache comes back and my mind goes to Peeta and that girl.

How did the date go? Is he with her now? Did he kiss her? If he did, did he feel the thing I felt on the beach? Did she? Did he kiss her the way he kissed me that night? Questions upon questions burn inside me and each one hurts as much as the previous.

The clock strikes eight and I look up from my deck of cards and sigh. I can't bear not knowing what Peeta is doing right now. If he's with her or not. I know I stand no chance of getting a good night's sleep. Last night I slept terribly, tossing and turning and every time I closed my eyes I saw Peeta with that girl.

Acting on an impulse I toss the cards left in my hand towards the bowl and I get down on the floor. Hurriedly I move through the house to the front door, grabbing my jacket on the way out. It's chilly outside tonight with a cold wind blowing, reminding me that it's not summer yet. Luckily I don't have very far to walk. I put one foot in front of the other and get moving before I can do something stupid like rethink this decision. I jog from my house to Peeta's, more to avoid the cold wind than anything else, and I hurry up the steps to his front door and knock firmly.

Shortly thereafter Peeta opens the door, surprise written on his face when he sees me. A smile is on his lips the next second and he steps aside to allow me to enter.

"What are you doing out at this hour?" he asks.

"It's only eight o'clock."

"On a cold and windy night." He closes the door behind me. "Look at you, you're shivering."

"I'm sorry" I say. I feel foolish for having come here but at the same time I can't bear to be anywhere else. "It's just… It's been a bad day. I can tell already that it's going to be a bad night." I hesitate. "Do you mind if I stay here tonight?"

He grabs my jacket and helps me out of it, putting it on a hanger.

"Of course I don't mind. Come on in. I'm just watching TV."

"Thank you" I say, smiling faintly.

"Want a cup of tea?" he asks, leading the way into the kitchen. "Something to warm you up?"

Just being in his presence warms me up quite well but I hate myself for even thinking something so silly. Instead I smile a little and shake my head.

"It was not even a minute long walk over here."

"Sure you don't want a cup?" he asks anyway.

"I'm sure. Thanks."

"Okay, suit yourself. Go have a seat, I'll be right with you."

He opens a cupboard and begins to rummage through it for something. Still with that small smile on my face I walk to the sitting room and take a seat on the comfortable couch. There's a soft, orange blanket thrown over the back of it and I take it and curl up underneath, feeling better already.

The TV is on, showing a cooking show which makes me roll my eyes. Peeta's not even all that fond of cooking, which is surprising to me since he loves to bake. I grab the remote and wonder if he'll mind me checking what's on the other channels. I ought to be a nice house guest and let him continue watching his show, especially if he's going to let me spend the night, but watching some Capitol nitwit explain the intricacies of battering eggs just right does not interest me in the slightest.

"You can change the channel if you want" says Peeta as he comes walking in. "I've missed about five steps in how to make this dish anyway."

"Since when are you eager to find out how to make…" I squint and lean a bit closer, trying to figure out what they are cooking. "Battered eggs and slices of uncommonly large cucumber" I conclude.

"That's squash" chuckles Peeta. He flops down next to me on the couch, holding a pair of bananas and a dark brown plastic tube with glittery sprinkles. "Check this out. I got a package from Effie the other day. For whatever reason she's worrying that I'm not eating enough." He nods at the TV. "Cooking show was her suggestion." He leans over the table and puts the bananas down together with the tube. He grabs one banana and peels it quickly before picking the tube up again. "Among a few other Capitol foods, and I'm using the word _food_ lightly here, she sent me this."

"What is it?" I ask, my curiosity peaked.

"Something that's most certainly not good for you" he replies with a grin. "Here, hold out a finger."

I do as he asks and he unscrews the lid of the tube, squeezing it carefully. A small dab of dark, liquid chocolate ends up on my fingertip and I stick it in my mouth, surprise by how rich the flavour is.

"Wow."

"It's meant to be put on ice-cream" he explains. "I haven't bothered explaining to her that ice-cream is not usually on our grocery lists. Maybe I can recommend it to that new ice-cream parlour though." He grabs the banana again and squirts a dab of chocolate on the fruit. He takes a big bite and grins mischievously. "You should try it with a banana. It's really something else."

He looks so charming with his big grin and his new Capitol treat that it tugs on my heartstrings and I want so badly to be able to turn back the clock to the point in time when I could have told him so without fear of rejection. My right arm rests on the back of the couch and I'm sitting with my right leg bent on the couch, my body angled towards him. I decline the banana he offers me, content to just watch him. He finishes the fruit, applying chocolate sauce before each bite, and then tosses the banana peel on the table. He leans closer to me and I feel my heart start beating faster.

"You have a dab of chocolate on your lip" he says.

He's so close to my face now, eyes on my mouth, and I'm having trouble remembering to breathe. This could be the moment I've been waiting for. All I have to do is lean in and kiss him. It would be so natural. But before I can actually do it he licks his finger and uses it to wipe the chocolate off. He then sits back down and turns his attention to the TV, which is still showing the cooking show.

"Sure you don't want the other banana?" he offers.

"I'm good" I murmur.

"Okay, well let me know if you change your mind. Effie sent me like ten of them and I don't think they will hold up for too long so you really would be doing me a favour by helping me eat them."

In a daze I shift on the couch, sitting with both feet on the ground and my hands on my lap, staring at the television though taking in absolutely nothing of what it's showing while I wait for my heart rate to slow down. I'm part exhilarated from how close he was to me and part painfully disappointed that he didn't press his lips to mine.

Neither one of us speaks for a few minutes. Peeta watches the show, chuckling at some of the slightly absurd moments, and seems completely unaware of how his closeness moments before has affected me. I force myself to watch the TV and not turn my eyes to him every other second. The silence feels strange because Peeta doesn't seem to notice how on edge I am. Finally there's a commercial break and he turns to me.

"I might be skipping on dinner every now and then in the future."

Disappointment fills me to the point where I almost want to cry. How can we go so fast from where we were moments ago to this? How does he have the power to make my emotions run this wild? If this is love I'm not at all sure I like it. I want to be the Katniss I used to be, who never let another person control her emotions like this.

"Oh" I manage. I hark my throat and ask the question I don't want to hear answered. "So last night was…"

"Nice" he finishes and a smile spreads slowly across his face. "Really nice. We're having dinner again on Tuesday."

Tuesday. It couldn't be Monday or Wednesday? It had to be the day he's supposed to have dinner with Haymitch and me?

"I see" I say, gluing my eyes to the TV which hopefully means I won't catch too much of the look on his face right now.

"I'll try to arrange for my evenings with her to be ones when it's not our dinner night" says Peeta, perhaps catching something in the tone of my voice. "Although… If last night was any indication I probably won't be able to make it to dinner with you guys every other night of the week."

I can't stop myself from looking at him.

"You can't spare three or four nights a week for us?" I ask, though I honestly don't care too much about how much time he allots to Haymitch right now.

"I don't know" he says with a shrug. The commercial break is over and he turns his attention back to the television. "I could be getting way ahead of myself here. We've only been on the one date, but it was a good date."

I say nothing, biting back the hurt inside. Why, _why_ did this have to happen? Why did some trollop of a seamstress have to come and turn his head, making him care about dinners with her more than he cares about his dinners with Haymitch and me? It's not just about my own jealousy. It's a disruption to the routine and it worries me, for my own sake as well as for Peeta's and Haymitch's. I think to myself that I ought to voice this concern but I don't know how to phrase it so that it doesn't come out wrong.

Suddenly the phone rings and startles me. Peeta turns away from the television, looking towards the kitchen where he's got the nearest phone. He gets up and heads for the kitchen and I hear his voice answer and then sound excited. It's probably her, calling to interfere with this night too. Jealousy and pettiness fills me and when my eyes land on the tube of chocolate sauce I reach forward and grab it. Tilting my head back I get the lid off and point the tube straight at my mouth, treating myself to a big mouthful of chocolate sauce. It tastes good and actually makes me feel a little less crappy but at the same time I feel ashamed of myself and I quickly screw the cork back on and put the tube back exactly the way it was, wiping my mouth with the back of my other hand.

A few minutes later Peeta comes back and takes a seat beside me.

"That was Effie" he says, sounding a bit irritated. "Called to make sure I was doing okay. I didn't realize that writing her a letter would activate some form of need she apparently has to escort _someone_. It felt weird, like she thinks she's my surrogate mother or something." He snorts. "My own mother thought I could do fine in a big house all by myself at age sixteen. I definitely don't need a replacement mother at this age."

I look at him and wonder if there's anything I can say to make him feel better. He sighs, furrows his brow, crosses his arms over his chest and leans back against the couch, his good mood completely gone. I realize I can't think of a single thing to say so I stay silent, pretending to watch the cooking show. When the show is blissfully over ten minutes later Peeta turns to me.

"I'm sorry" he says. "I don't mean to sound like such a brat. She just gets a little… Effie, sometimes, you know?"

"She cares about you, Peeta" I say. "You're…" My cheeks flush a bit as I realize that what I'm about to say is incredibly cheesy but I can't help myself. "You're important to her. There's a distance between you now that wasn't there before and-"

"She was barely in my life before" Peeta points out.

I can't believe I'm sitting here talking about my own feelings disguised as interpretations of Effie Trinket's behaviour. Sometimes I really don't like what feeling this way about someone turns me into.

"Nonetheless" I say. "She loves you, you know. She's just not good at showing it. If she wants to shower you with this kind of attention then let her. Where's the harm?"

"No I know" says Peeta, offering me a faint smile. "I shouldn't complain. It just gets on my nerves sometimes, that's all."

"You know, I can understand how she feels" I say, feeling my pulse quicken and a knot tighten in my stomach as I brace myself to test the waters.

"Oh?" He sounds surprised.

"I care about you, too" I say, too bashful to use any stronger words at the moment. My hand finds Peeta's and I lightly caress the back of his hand with my thumb. "I mean I… I like you. So much. I like knowing you're okay and I can understand that Effie feels that way too, albeit in a more… overbearing escort kind of way."

I know I must be blushing but I don't care. Peeta is looking at me with a new intensity in his eyes and a warm smile on his lips. It's impossible for me not to return that smile. I can't recall that I ever knew before how good it feels to smile with someone this way.

"I care so much about you, too, Katniss" says Peeta with warmth.

"You do?" I ask, by now convinced that my cheeks must be flaming red.

"Of course I do." He reaches out his hand and gently brushes my cheek with the back of his fingers. "You don't know how glad I am that we can have this type of relationship now."

"What kind of relationship is that?" I ask, awaiting his answer with bated breath.

"Real, genuine friendship. Unhindered by my jealousy of Gale and your… well, for lack of a better word, inability to reciprocate my feelings. You're my best friend, a little bit like Delly was when we were kids but on a much deeper level."

I avert my eyes, biting my bottom lip and focusing on taking slow, even breaths. Was I completely crazy or did we have a moment of understanding before he opened his mouth and effectively friend-zoned me? I know I didn't spell out my feelings for him in exact terms but surely he must be able to read it on my face right now?

Giving him the best fake smile I can muster, which admittedly is rather half-assed, I excuse myself to go to the bathroom. He nods and reaches for the remote while I get up and leave the room on slightly unstable legs. Once I reach the bathroom I lock the door behind me and grab the sink with both hands, staring at myself in the mirror, trying to force myself to stop trembling.

"Get it together" I mumble to myself. I need to calm down or he will see that I am upset and I cannot handle that. Not in the wake of what just transpired.

After everything we've been through together Peeta must be able to tell what I was trying to get through to him moments ago. Yes I know it's cowardly to expect him to read between the lines like that but I have to tread very carefully with this or I might risk losing him altogether. As it is, I can only think of two explanations for what transpired.

One is that Peeta simply didn't pick up on my intentions. Maybe I was too subtle after all and it all came across as just an affirmation of friendship. I can accept that. All that means is that I have to be more obvious the next time. What worries me is the possibility that he's too busy thinking about Lace to notice the signs I'm trying to send him.

The other option is that he did in fact see what I was trying to convey and that he gave me my answer as subtly as he could. The more I think about it the more I become convinced that he did in fact just give me the brush-off. I should be thrilled that he's nearly as invested in keeping me in his life as I am in keeping him in mine but that seems almost insignificant in light of the crushing fact that if he did understand that my feelings for him are more than friendly he doesn't reciprocate.

I stare at myself in the mirror and hate the fact that I am such a coward. Really, what's wrong with me? I ought to just go out there and tell him straight out that I can't stop thinking about him and I want a chance at a real relationship with him and tonight I want to sleep in his bed, in his arms, and I don't ever want to spend a night, or day, without him. I should remind him that even though he's got a thing for this girl Lace it can't measure up to everything he and I have meant to each other and the bond that we share. I am his first love and if he loved me for over ten years then he must still have some feelings for me. I should kiss him and try to make him feel the way our kisses in the second arena made me feel. I ought to do all of that and if he turns me down then we can deal with the fallout but if he gives me the chance we could have something far beyond anything I, _we_, have ever experienced before.

The problem is that the odds seem horribly _not_ in my favour.

I think of how uncomfortable Peeta's references to his love for me used to make me feel and how strange it felt to be kissed by him at first. I picture Peeta feeling uncomfortable knowing that I'm in love with him and not wanting to feel my lips against his and the thought of it breaks my heart.

Sighing heavily at my own cowardice and longing back to the good old days when I wasn't sure what I felt or who I felt it for I splash my face with cold water and dry off on Peeta's guest towel. I head back to the sitting room where Peeta is watching a documentary on the oh so fascinating creature that is the mosquito. When he hears me coming he cranes his neck and looks at me over his shoulder.

"Sure you don't want a banana?" he says.

"I'm sure" I say, surprised at how steady my voice sounds. I sit back down on the couch, this time with a bit more space between myself and Peeta. "You should use them in your baking."

"That's a good idea" he nods, a touch of excitement in his voice. "I can still spare one for my best buddy, though."

His smile is relaxed but I can't muster up the energy to return it. I sit beside him and watch television until he begins to yawn and suggests we call it a night. Declining his offer of a mug of hot milk before bed I walk towards the downstairs bedroom, assuring Peeta that I can get the sheets for the bed on my own.

When I crawl between the sheets I curl up on a foetal position and sigh heavily, feeling hopelessness and jealousy and sadness wearing me down. The sheets smell of Peeta's favourite fabric softener, vanilla-orchid, and the comfortable t-shirt I'm wearing is one of his old ones but for the first time I don't feel any better sleeping here than I do in my own bed in my own house. I can hear Peeta moving around upstairs and I wonder what he's thinking and who he's thinking of, and if he really wants me to be here.

I have a nightmare that night, dreaming that I confess my true feelings to Peeta and he reacts by looking very uncomfortable and then suddenly Lace Bomull is there beside him, pregnant and glowing with happiness. The rest of the dream consists mostly of Peeta disappearing and me trying to find him but Lace constantly showing up to block my path or take him away once I find him.

I wake up with a gasp and a shudder, sitting myself up to catch my breath, feeling terrible and wondering how I came to this place. How in the world did I end up in unrequited love with the boy who loved me from age five?

Letting myself fall back against the mattress I clutch the comforter, staring at the ceiling in my loneliness. I feel a strong urge to get out of bed, put my clothes on and head back home but I know I have to be here in the morning or Peeta will wonder. What I want to do the most is go up the stairs and seek comfort in Peeta's arms but I'm afraid to. If he was giving me the brush-off tonight I don't want to make him uncomfortable by crawling into bed with him. I can't risk doing anything that might drive us apart.

I just don't know how to do anything that will bring us closer together.


	8. Chapter 8

This is a fairly short one and I had some struggles with it (more details in the end note). I made some attempts att adding length to it but I couldn't fit something in that didn't feel like mere padding so it is what it is, just about 3500 words or so.

* * *

Springtime is particularly lovely this year. The process of rebuilding the district has gotten fairly far and all the rubble and debris has been removed. A committee was formed the previous autumn to make decisions on how to spend the funding we get from the new Capitol, a committee Haymitch reluctantly agrees to be part of after Peeta and I blankly refuse. From what Haymitch tells us the members of the committee spend most of their time arguing with each other, which Peeta calls a side-effect of having gained freedom after so many years of oppression – people never had a say before so now everyone wants a say to make up for it. What they have managed to agree on is that the district needs to be made nicer on the eyes and part of that project has been to plant trees and bushes. So while the sun shines brightly from the sky for several days without a cloud in sight the new flora begins to come to life. In town there are several chestnut trees surrounded by rose bushes, all in bloom. Beech trees with fresh bright green leaves line the roads that lead to the factory, the hospital and the Justice Building. The road out to the Victors' Village has been lined with cherry trees that soon burst into bloom. While I strongly dislike the rose bushes I find the other parts of the new plantlife to be beautiful and soothing.

It's just a shame that all this beauty is wasted on a spring when I walk around with a constant knot in my stomach. In the six weeks that have passed since Peeta's first date with Lace he has been on many more, at least one every week but probably more than that. Always on Friday nights, whether he was supposed to meet with Haymitch and me or not, and there have been at least two other times when he has bailed on us for a mid-week dinner. He's in bright spirits and I want so badly to be happy that he's in a good mood but I can't separate his frame of mind from the person responsible for it.

At first we barely speak of her. I never ask questions and Peeta, for whatever reason, chooses not to give me any details. Yet with each passing week I begin to wonder and worry more and more. Is this a person he will continue seeing? Is Peeta about to have a proper girlfriend? If that is the case, what will I do then?

* * *

The subject of Lace, the New Love Interest, finally comes up one afternoon when we are out in my garden, Peeta and I. He's helping me tend to the primrose bushes because I haven't got the first idea how to make a plant survive and Peeta has at least some knowledge of how to tend to them.

"For the life of me I cannot fathom how a person so apt at finding medicinal herbs and edible plants can have absolutely no knowledge of how to tend to a garden" smirks Peeta as he kneels by the primrose bushes and gets to work.

"I know how to find wild plants" I retort, crossing my arms over my chest. "These are domesticated ones. It makes no sense that they should need to be watered by mankind when their wild companions seem to survive just fine on their own."

Peeta chuckles. I've actually been very careful not to let these flowers come to any harm but I know that watering them during a drought is not the only care they need.

"We'll settle for the simpler stuff this year" says Peeta, using a small hoe to pat fresh soil over the plants' roots. "In a year or two though we'll have to think about planting new ones, preferably from these bushes' sprouts."

"Why would we have to do that?" I ask, feeling slightly worried.

"I don't think these bushes live all that long" he answers. "To keep gardens alive you sometimes have to focus on the offspring of your original plants, as it were."

"Who knew it would be so complicated?" I mutter. "Can I count on you to help me with this stuff or will I have to go get myself a gardener?"

"I'd be happy to help" he smiles. "I'm not doing much of value these days anyway so it's nice to have something to busy myself with during the day. Oh by the way, I've ordered some yellow paint."

A smile lights my face.

"You'll be busy working on the painting soon, then?"

"Indeed I will, once I get the paint." He rises from the ground, a bit wobbly on his prosthetic left leg, and brushes dirt off his pants. "Just as soon as I finish with what I'm working on at the moment."

"So what are you working on?" I ask, handing him a bottle of water.

He unscrews the cap and tilts his head back, swallowing several gulps in a row. It's a warm day, not summer hot but enough to make you thirsty when you're out working in the sunlight in a pair of overalls.

"It kind of sounds stupid," he says when he's done drinking, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, "but it's the view of a tree as seen from when you're lying down on the ground looking up at the sky."

"That sounds nice, not stupid" I say, though I'm not quite sure why he would choose that specific angle.

"I hope so" he smiles. "Lace has been telling me all about how she and her best friend used to lie on the grass underneath a large chestnut during summer afternoons. It got me thinking of how the light hits the leaves when you're looking at it from that view and it made me want to paint it."

"Oh."

"It's frustrating, actually, because I also ordered more green paint and I can't finish this piece until I get it. I have this perfect image in my head and I think I know how to put it on canvas but I need more paint to complete it. It's like I can't stop thinking about how leaves look from that angle when the sun shines down on them. You know, how they're dark at the centre but a bright green on the edges."

"Yes I know" I say, a touch coldly. "I have seen leaves from that viewpoint before."

"If it turns out alright I'm going to give it to her."

He hands the bottle back to me and I take it, screwing the cap back on. That hurt that is by now far too familiar returns to my chest and I can't help but scold myself for being so ridiculous. It saddens and hurts me that Peeta is considering giving one of his paintings to Lace even though he's given away paintings before. Am I really so petty and jealous that I don't want her to have _anything_ from him?

"Does she miss her old district?" I ask, mostly just to make conversation.

"Quite a lot" answers Peeta. "Well, she hasn't said it straight out but judging by the things she tells me… Especially now during spring it seems she misses her friends and family and District 8 springtime in general."

"So why did she even move here?" I ask. "Was District 8 that badly damaged?"

"You don't know?" asks Peeta, looking surprised. "They told me… I was told you went there. During the war. They said you visited a hospital and it was attacked. My handlers in the Capitol wanted me to believe you provoked the attack."

"It's true, I was there when the hospital was bombed" I tell him. "I'm not so convinced Snow and his forces knew I was there, though. Not until afterward. I'm just curious, Peeta, why didn't this girl go back to her home district when the war ended?"

"She figured there would be more opportunities here, I guess."

"More opportunities?"

"There's bound to be a surplus of seamstresses and tailors in the fabric district, don't you think?" he asks. He grabs the wheelbarrow and begins to push it towards the shed in my back yard.

"Yeah but… Why come here?" I ask, following him as he goes. "Why not go to a district that's better off?"

"Twelve is a lucrative choice, I guess." He looks up at the sky and squints at the bright sunlight. "Looks like we might have rain this evening."

"Never mind the weather. What do you mean Twelve is a lucrative choice?"

"I do mind the weather" frowns Peeta. "I'm going to town tonight to have dinner with Lace and I'd prefer not arriving soaking wet."

"Peeta. What do you mean Twelve is a lucrative choice?"

"Isn't it obvious?" he asks, motioning for me to open the door to the shed. "The factory is creating a lot of work and so is the rebuilding of the district."

"Yeah, but Lace doesn't work at the factory and she isn't building houses" I point out, holding the door open for him. "What's in it for her?"

"People need clothes to wear, don't they?"

"Look, Peeta" I say, closing the door to the shed and brushing my hands on my sleeves. "Are you really concerned about arriving soaking wet for a dinner with a girl who's making a profit off of the suffering of the people in our district?"

"You make it sound so sinister" he says, his tone disapproving.

"It's vulture behaviour and I hate it" I spit out, a touch too aggressively.

"Katniss." He says my name with a mixture of surprise and chastisement. "Lace isn't like that."

"How do you know?" I ask. "What do you really know about her, Peeta?"

"A lot more than you do" he replies. "She's no more taking _advantage_ of people here than you are when you sell your game to them just so you can spend money that isn't from the Capitol. She makes a living by making clothes for people who _choose_ to come to her shop." He pauses, as if he realizes he's about to go off on a long rant, and runs a hair through his curly hair. "Look, maybe you should meet her again. Spend some time with her, get to know her."

"No thank you" I snort. I'm about to ask him if she's really _that_ important to him when he gives me a disapproving look.

"You judge people so harshly sometimes" he says. "Why can't you give someone the benefit of the doubt?"

"You try too hard to only see the good in people" I shoot back. I begin to walk back across the lawn and Peeta follows. "For the record I admit that I don't know her. Okay? Maybe she's a saint. Maybe she's better than everyone else in all the country."

"Katniss…"

"I'm just saying, Peeta, that you shouldn't let your guard down and just _assume_ that she's wonderful just because you like the sound of her laughter." I stop and give him a serious look. "I don't want to see you get hurt."

"Thanks, but I'm a big boy" he says. "I've already had my heart broken. I'm not going to let that stop me from seeing the good in people." He looks away. "I don't know that I can carry on otherwise. I can't see the world as being full of villains."

"You mean the way I do?" My brow furrows and I cross my arms over my chest. I need to focus on this comment rather than the one he just made about having had his heart broken. I can focus on that later, when I'm alone.

Peeta's eyes meet mine again.

"No, Katniss, I didn't mean to imply… You have your walls up and I understand why, believe me, I do. We're just… different, you and I. We find different ways to cope. For you, being wary of people is self-protection. For me, holding on to my beliefs that most people are good is self-preservation. They've taken so much from me already and I don't want to give them that part of me, too."

"I'm just trying to look out for you" I say, my tone softening. "I do think it's nice that you want to believe the best about people. Just don't let that blind you, okay?"

"I'm not blind when it comes to Lace" says Peeta. "I'm just starting to get to know her and I know she will turn out to have negative qualities and… less bubbly personality traits. I can assure you, though, that she's not here to make a profit from anyone's suffering."

I had almost forgotten what the discussion had originated on. I feel deflated that when I was able to find a, in my mind, valid reason for concern regarding her Peeta just waves it aside.

"How can you be sure?" I ask.

"She works so hard" he says, following me up the steps that lead to the back porch. I offer him a seat at the wooden table and he takes it. "She never takes advantage of her customers. In fact she does the opposite. I've seen her agree to make clothes for people on credit, even though it might be a long time until they can actually pay her and she doesn't have much money herself. She knows what suffering is, Katniss. She wouldn't try to benefit from somebody else's hardships."

"Still" I say, sitting opposite him. "Why come here? She could have gone to the Capitol. They must have a lot more exciting prospects for a seamstress. Or she could have gone to Two, they were pretty badly hit during the war and people need new clothes there, too. Twelve seems like an odd choice."

"Look around you, Katniss" says Peeta. "At least one in four out of the faces you see in the streets is a person who wasn't born in Twelve. Why are you so suspicious of her motives and not of theirs?"

Because none of them are the object of Peeta's affections but of course I can't tell him that. I don't even want it to be the truth. I want there to be some real, tangible, legitimate reason for me to dislike her, one that has nothing to do with Peeta.

"I just don't want to see you getting hurt" I say.

He smiles slightly.

"Are you going to be this hard on every girl I date?"

I return his smile, a touch of relief in my chest. So he's not really infatuated with her, not yet at least. If he was he wouldn't be entertaining the thought of dating other girls at some point in the future.

"What will you do with the guys who want to date me?" I ask him, attempting for it to sound like carefree banter but hiding a serious question underneath.

Peeta leans his head back and laughs.

"Not a damn thing. You, Katniss Everdeen, the Mockingjay herself. You don't need me or anyone else to ward off potential suitors."

"So I can date whoever I want then and you won't mind?" I ask, hiding my inner feelings with a smirk.

"Well, not _anyone_" he answers, still chuckling. "If you brought home a morphlingist or a baker who might possibly become a future business rival to me I might not be best pleased. Tell you what, the next time you've got a date you let me know who it is and I will give you my opinion then."

The smile slowly fades from my lips but Peeta doesn't seem to notice. His attention is on Buttercup, who has come walking up the porch steps and is begging for attention. Peeta leans over to pet him, asking him if he's been out chasing mice. I can't help but think to myself how ridiculous it is for Peeta to refer to the _next time_ I've got a date. I've never had a date in my life.

Peeta picks Buttercup up and places him on his lap. The cat permits him to pet him but doesn't curl up and purr like he always did with Prim and occasionally does with me nowadays. I keep my eyes on the cat, finding it the safest choice at the moment.

"So, uh…" says Peeta, glancing up at me through the blond curls that fall over his brow. "Why the question?"

"Huh?" My eyes go from the cat to him. "What question?"

"You know… About how I would react if you were dating someone…"

I shrug and lean back in my chair, letting my eyes drift away from him.

"Just banter."

"Banter…" he says with a small nod. "So it's not your way of testing the waters before you tell me about some new guy you're dating?"

I look at him again, suddenly curious.

"What do you care?"

"We're friends, right?" He smiles half-heartedly. "You know, people care whether or not their friends have a date."

"That's not true" I scoff. "They might care if their friend has got a crush on someone but whether or not they're dating in general?" A disturbing thought crosses my mind. "Unless you're thinking about setting me up with someone."

He holds up his hands as if to surrender, laughing slightly. Buttercup hisses at him for pausing the petting.

"No, no fixing you up with anyone, I promise!"

"Then why do you care?" I ask, feeling interested and for once like I'm in some level of control.

"Just making conversation" he claims. He begins to pet the cat again but Buttercup has decided he's no longer worthy and hisses at him before jumping down on the floor.

"Really?" I say, voice full of scepticism. I can feel the cat brushing against my legs and in an odd way it makes me feel better, as if Buttercup is siding with me.

"Okay, I'll admit…" says Peeta. "I'm not sure how I would feel if you were going on a date with somebody. Don't get me wrong, I know it's not for me to have an opinion about it. It's just a little weird. I remember feeling jealous of Gale, that part they very kindly let me keep, and I don't know if…"

"If?"

"It's not my place to have an opinion on your love life but I'm still trying to figure out what my… emotional-self is like now post-hijacking."

I tilt my head slightly, studying him intently. He seems quite uncomfortable all of a sudden and my heart feels a touch of warmth and satisfaction. If I start flirting with some other guy will that make him jealous? If so then what does that say about his affections for the bubbly seamstress?

"This conversation just turned very strange" he laughs uncomfortably, rubbing his neck with one hand.

"I'd say it just turned interesting" I reply calmly.

"You know what, forget that I said anything at all." He rises and looks at his watch. "I should go home and take a shower anyway."

"Why? The seamstress doesn't like your natural musk?" I say, rather enjoying myself for once.

"My natural musk is one thing" he answers. "Right now I smell of the fertilizer I used on the primrose bushes." He walks towards the steps leading down from the porch but then he stops and turns slightly towards me. "I'm sorry, I know I'm acting a little peculiar, but there's… There are some things I'm still trying to figure out. A lot of things, to be honest. It's weird not knowing your own brain or your own emotions anymore."

I frown and get up from my seat, no longer finding anything about this conversation to be entertaining or strengthening.

"Peeta are you talking to Dr. Aurelius about this? Is he helping you?"

"It will work itself out in time, Katniss" says Peeta in a calmer tone. "Yeah I talk to him about it, to an extent. Most of all it's just… me having to get to know myself all over again, if that makes sense."

"Maybe you shouldn't be dating anyone right now then" I say. Setting aside my jealousy it still concerns me that he's getting involved with someone new in the light of what he's just told me. "It sounds to me like you need to focus on yourself right now and not on getting to know someone new."

"Spending time with Lace is really helpful" he says, a touch of annoyance in his voice. "Trust me. I know what I'm doing."

"Know what you're doing?" I echo with scepticism. "You just acted really weird and told me things I didn't know about your recovery. Peeta it doesn't sound to me like you've got this all figured out."

"I don't" he says. "What I do know is being around her helps. Look I really have to get going. Just… Just ignore these past five minutes altogether if that makes you feel better, okay?"

He heads off towards his own house and I walk to the railing to keep my eyes on him as he goes. What on earth just happened?

* * *

My two biggest problems with this chapter are the argument they have and the conversation on the porch. With the argument I did a few re-writes but I'm still not sure it says what I intend for it to say. The porch conversation must have existed in like a dozen different versions by the time I decided not to change it any further. I've ended up pretty much stuck and I realize I won't be able to figure out if it all works like I intend for it to work so I decided to post it as is. Hopefully through your feedback I'll find out if I got it right. If I didn't, I might re-post a different version of this chapter (though knowing myself that's not likely) or I'll try to "right the wrongs" in the chapter that follows.

On an unrelated note, the comment on how "people never had a say before so now everyone wants a say to make up for it" is lovingly borrowed from Vilhelm Moberg's amazing "Emigrants" suite. It seemed like such a fitting viewpoint that I couldn't help giving it to Peeta.

Oh, and I am working on a series of ficlets (chapters? chaplets?) for this universe from Peeta's POV. I will post them at a later time as a separate piece. At least some of Peeta's thoughts and reasonings will be revealed.


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